Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro: Two-minute review

Anker's Soundcore sub-brand may not have a reputation for releasing the best earbuds that everyone raves about, but they tend to be solid pieces of kit. We gave the Soundcore Liberty 5 (yes, take care, because that's not these — and there's also a Pro Max to swerve in favor of these) a 3.5-star score, and that tends to be par for the course. Until now, that is.

With the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro, there's been a change: it really feels like the brand is coming into its own, and it knows what buyers really want.

These are incredibly feature-stuffed headphones, with an app that'll boggle your mind given how many tools it offers. And they're all useful too: the ANC is very good, the listening test is handy and the array of array of little extras is impressive.

Particularly special is the quiet calling feature, so people you're speaking to on the phone can't hear what's going on around you. I hear many brands boast about their buds’ quiet call quality, with algorithms and microphones designed to wipe background sound from your voice in calls. Most of the time it’s bluff and bluster, but the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro are the real deal.

I know this because, part-way through the review process, my mother called me while I was in a busy coffee shop. I apologized for the pop music being blasted over the speakers – I could barely hear myself think for Outkast’s Hey Ya! – and she asked me what music I was talking about. She’d have had no idea I was in a noisy space, had it not been for my telling her. If two thumbs up from my mom isn’t a glowing endorsement of tech, I don’t know what is.

I'd be remiss not to mention the Soundcore's fit too. The buds are nice and lightweight, with a ridge to help them lock in your ear. I never had any fit problems with them, and they stayed in place during runs and workouts.

What about the sound? The buds offer warm, bass-heavy music that'll please people who like thumping heavy rhythms. The audio quality won't endear the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro to audiophiles (do wireless earbuds at this level ever excite audiophiles?) but nevertheless it isn't at all bad. Sound quality may not be the highlight of these buds, but I still enjoyed listening to them during my testing.

My main gripes with the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro bypass the earpieces and their talents and really only concern the case. It has a small touchscreen strip, but it doesn't do enough to justify its existence (nor is it responsive enough for that). And the case is bigger than it should be as a result; I would've loved to see it lose the strip and shrink a little.

At least it's not the Liberty 5 Pro Max, with a giant case and big touchscreen. I tested that too, and you can read more about it later, but it's decidedly more of a professional-targeted device. Most buyers looking for some great earbuds would do better with these Pro-only earbuds: they're cheaper and you're only missing a few features — ones I think you may not use anyway.

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: Price and release date

• Released on May 21, 2026
• They sell for $169.99 / £149.99 (about AU$300)
• Sitting between Liberty 5, and Liberty 5 Pro Max

The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro were announced alongside a slew of other Anker products at the brand’s annual Anker Day, on May 21, 2026.

You can pick them up for $169.99 / £149.99 (about AU$300), so unlike many of the brand’s other pairs of earbuds, they’ve crept over the line: these aren’t budget buds, rather solidly mid-range ones. For a little context, the non-Pro model launched for $129 / £99 / AU$169, but went on sale a year prior, so have seen some discounts.

They launched alongside the Liberty 5 Pro Max, which sell for a fair bit more: $229.99 / £199.99 (roughly AU$400). We’ll get into these a little later; it’s best to treat them as a ‘Pro’ model to the Liberty 5 Pro (despite that being a little confusing), with a few extra tools for professionals, but no major advantage.

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: Specs

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: Features

• Impressive noise cancellation and clear calling
• Middling battery life, at 6.5 hours
• Absolutely loads of features via app

In the introduction to this review, I already waxed lyrical about the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro's quiet call tools. Suffice to say, it's just as impressive as it was when you read about it a few minutes ago: a real stand-out feature of the buds.

Quiet calls is one of the many benefits brought from the use of Anker’s Thus chip, with the brand’s decision to home-brew its own internals, and thus get to design its software and hardware in tandem, paying dividends.

Another example is noise cancellation, as the Liberty 5 Pro has some of the best I’ve used in a set of earbuds at its price point. It is able to eradicate the low, rumbling background hum of life, and drastically reduce louder sounds too — it even took a big chunk out of my coffee shop’s streaming of Hey Ya!.

In theory, battery life is another department that should benefit from Thus, and Anker puts the listening time per bud, with ANC on, at 6.5 hours. From my own testing, that’s an optimistic figure — my own listening time was a little south of that mark. The same is true with the overall case battery life, which Anker states as 28 hours. Don’t get me wrong: the battery life here is fine, but it’s nothing to write home about either.

If that sounds like a nice little haul of features already, just wait until you download the Soundcore app. If my editor didn’t think this section was too long already, just wait until we list what else you get with the buds.

This has all the basics: the ability to change between noise cancelling modes, customizable touch controls, Dolby Atmos, EQ presets, multi-point connection, fit tests, find-my earbuds, and an eight-band custom equalizer.

But you get a whole lot more: there's a listening test for custom EQ, a load of ambient soundscapes and listening modes, and even a built-in chat-bot called Anka which can give you suggestions for settings to change. There's a lot going on.

If anything, the app's a little confusingly laid out. If you select your earbuds, where most apps would put all the settings, you can only see a few. To find more, you need to press a little Settings cog which is easy to miss. And for many more options, you have to back out all the way to the main menu.

• Features score: 4.5/5

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: Design

• Kidney bean-shaped bud with tip and fin
• Reliable in-ear fit
• Touchscreen-toting case is a little bulky

Anker has opted for a kidney bean-shaped look for the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds; they bring to mind Samsung’s bean buds, but with a tip that you can use to put them in your ear. You can pick them up in blue, pink, white or black, and the buds and case come in the same hue.

Each earbud weighs 7g, is made of a solid-feeling plastic, and the other design feature of note is a little wing at the top to keep them locked in your ear. To be clear, the fit is much better than those older Samsung buds. That little wing works magically, and I took them to the gym and on countless runs without any inkling of them falling out.

The buds are IP55 protected, which means they’re protected from dust and low-pressure water jets (like rain or sweat) but aren’t suitable for swimming. You get touch controls on each bud, but you need to tap multiple times to achieve anything, and I found them unreliable for multi-tap commands.

Now onto the case; the 0.96-inch display on the front isn’t as much as selling point here as the Pro Max’s larger one is, but it’s not as much of a gimmick as to put off people who aren’t interested.

It sort of makes the case look like a very small '90s alarm clock. You can use its screen to quickly check the charge of the buds and enabled certain features; I found it pretty unresponsive and gave up using it for music control quite quickly, but perhaps a more patient user could persevere. I can see the quick access to EQ presets being pretty handy for certain people.

Due to its touchscreen, the Liberty 5 Pro's case is a little larger than most rivals', even if at 70g it's not unduly heavy. I found it a little on the large side to slip into my pocket; not perfect for people who like a tiny case. The sliding mechanism to reveal the buds felt quick and easy, but I'm curious about how long it'd lasting in the long term. Even over several weeks of using the buds, the sliding plane started to feel a little wobbly.

• Design score: 4/5

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: Sound quality

• Using 45mm drivers
• Music is muffled, and tinny
• EQ doesn't help

Anker has put 9.2mm drivers in the Liberty 5 Pro Max, which I'm inclined to believe are the same pieces of kit that it used in the non-Pro buds. As with those other models, these aren't audiophile earbuds — the sound is way too warm for that — and instead they give the people what they want.

That's to say, they're bass-heavy and energetic buds, focused more on snappy lower frequencies and tender higher ones than an objectively natural, integrated hi-fi sound. Given how commonly this kind of sound profile is used in affordable and mid-range buds, I'm inclined to say it's popular, and Soundcore's done a great job hitting that target.

If you like lower-end clout in your sound, you'll be happy here. Any genre I tried, from rock to pop to dance, fared well. It was even solid for listening to genres that don't revel in excess bass, like classical, acoustic and jazz.

Bass injection is clearly the name of the game here, but for the most part, trebles and mids are just as forceful, offering an enjoyable amount of detail. Shane Smith & the Saints' Coast has a lovely delicate timbre in the acoustic guitar which you often miss, and some lovely harmonies in Last Sunrise In The Wasteland by At The End Of Times, Nothing came to the fore.

I'm not going to claim that these buds are perfect. At lower volumes, the Liberty 5 Pro lose trebles and mids at a disproportionate rate.

But the real 'problem' will likely come from the sound being divisive. The Liberty 5 Pro's bassy sound might not please everyone. It's right on the border of 'too much', sometimes offering a lovely thumping sound, but occasionally stepping over the line.

In songs like Gabriel Kelley's You Kill Me, bass guitar can overstep its role as an accompanying instrument, and step to the fore in a way that throws the song out of whack. At other times, it can just override some of the more sensitive instruments. More so than in most earbuds I test, you're going to have to get familiar with the EQ presets, and use them depending on which genre you prefer to listen to.

If that wasn't a problem for audiophiles, perhaps the relative lack of Bluetooth codec support is. You're getting Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification, but seemingly no bone thrown for LDAC, aptX or anything similar.

• Sound quality: 4/5

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: how about the Pro Max?

• Pro Max cost a little more
• Sound quality and battery life are identical
• Pro Max has larger case, one or two extra tools

Beyond being an absolute mouthful to say (or, in this case, write), the Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max are very similar earbuds to the Pro. So much so, that instead of writing an entire separate review on them, I decided to give them a section of the Pro review. And why not the other way around? That's because the Pros are, in my opinion, the best buds for most people.

The Pro Max earbuds are exactly the same as the Pro's, in terms of design, sound quality, battery life and feature set (mainly). The Max comes in thanks to two additional features: you can use the case to record audio and provide quick transcripts, and for instant voice translation.

They're solid features, all right, but with more limited appeal. I can see them being handy for business users, but not so much for the average buyer.

Your other upgrade here is in the carry case: its display now takes up the entire top of the buds, and it offers loads more features. You can add a custom wallpaper, and use it for various tools, settings and modes, including (but not limited to) the aforementioned extra features.

Again, useful additions, but at the cost of an even larger carry case. It wasn't comfortable to keep in my pocket, that's for sure.

I'm not disputing that the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max are better earbuds. But for most people, I don't think they're enough to justify the extra cost. Only consider these if you'll really use

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: Value

• Too expensive to be consumer cans
• Value for money if you need transmitter

The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro are reasonably priced, but you get what you pay for. There’s nothing wrong with that, but a good discount would tip these into the ‘amazing’ value for money camp.

The noise cancellation, sound quality and feature set are all really good for the price… but there are loads of other rivals at around the same price point that all offer suites that are good for the price. I've tested a few earbuds for even less, that impress me just as much.

At least the Anker Liberty Pro are better value money than the Pro Max. You’re paying more money, and getting a very similar product. For business users maybe, but I can’t see myself recommending them to most people, when the Pro is right there.

• Value: 3.5/5

Should I buy the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro review: Also consider

Want to see what other earbuds your money can get you? Here are some alternatives for roughly the same price.

How I tested the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro

• Tested for three weeks
• Paired with Android phone for variety of tasks
• Also used alongside Pro Max

I used the Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro for three weeks before writing this review. I tested them alongside the Pro Max model.

During the testing process, the earbuds were connected to my Android smartphone. I used them for streaming Spotify Lossless music as well as Tidal and Apple Music, playing various games, streaming videos, conducting voice calls and going on video chats.

That listening went on at home, while at the gym, during runs, and on walks around my neighborhood. For certain areas, like ANC and sound quality, I have reference tests I conduct which lets me compare various earbuds.

I've reviewed earbuds and headphones for TechRadar for many years, including previous Anker products like the Space 2 over-ears earlier this year.

• First reviewed in June 2026

• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

Dyson Supersonic Travel: two-minute review

As the name suggests, the Dyson Supersonic Travel is a scaled-down, travel-friendly version of Dyson's now-iconic Supersonic dryer, redesigned to fit in your luggage. It's 32% smaller and 25% lighter than the original, weighing just 0.7lbs / 330g, and it automatically adapts to any voltage between 100 and 240V without any fiddly switches or converters.

It offers the same 110,000rpm motor and intelligent heat control technology as seen on the full-size Nural, measuring air temperature over 100 times a second to avoid extreme heat damage. You get three heat settings and two airflow speeds, controlled via buttons on the cylindrical head and LEDs show you which setting you're on, at a glance.

The Travel ships with a magnetic smoothing nozzle in the box but is also compatible with any and all existing Supersonic Nural attachments, which is a useful detail if you already own the Nural or if you need a range of alternative nozzles.

In testing, drying was noticeably faster than a typical hotel dryer, and faster than some cheaper, regular hair dryers. It took around four minutes on my fine, mid-length, curly hair and the results were smooth. Dyson is upfront that airflow isn't quite as powerful as its full-size range and it is noticeable, but not a dealbreaker for my hair type. I imagine it will soon frustrate anyone with thicker or longer hair, though.

The price is where things get complicated. At $299.99 / £249.99 / AU$449, the Supersonic Travel sits at the very top of the travel dryer market. The ghd Flight+ does the same basic job, albeit it with some more fiddly controls, for $129 / £79. The most like-for-like is the Dreame Pocket Pro and even that only pushes the price to $159.99 / £149.

By almost any normal dryer standards, the Supersonic Travel is a well-designed, well-built and powerful contender in the hunt for the best hair dryers. It more than holds its own and there are very few sacrifices to make. This performance goes a long way towards justifying the higher cost, but even then it's still a tough price pill to swallow unless you're a frequent traveler.

Dyson Supersonic Travel: price & availability

• List price: $299.99 / £249.99 / AU$449
• Availability: US, UK, Australia

The Supersonic Travel sits at the top end of the travel dryer market – and then some. It's almost three times the price of the GHD Flight+ and twice the price of the Dreame Pocket Pro. In fact, it's not too far off the price of the original Supersonic, which still retails for $399.99 / £279.99 (although is often on sale for less).

It is, however, notably cheaper than its siblings and Dyson's flagship models, the $449.99 / £399.99 / AU$749 Supersonic Nural and the Supersonic r that retails for $549.99 / £449.99 / AU$799.

The Supersonic Travel is available from Dyson, as well as Amazon, Boots and Cult Beauty in the UK; Amazon and Best Buy in the US; and JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman in Australia.

The most obvious budget alternative is the ghd Flight+ at £79 / $129 / AU$159 – a foldable travel dryer with dual voltage, albeit without auto-adapting voltage (you need to use a coin to switch modes) and no wider attachment compatibility.

The Dreame Pocket Pro ($159.99 / £149) is a more interesting comparison: it's lighter (at 300g), similarly auto-adapts to global voltage, and comes with a more generous attachments bundle. It's also foldable, whereas the Dyson model isn't.

Neither the GHD or Dreame models match the Dyson for brand heritage or the intelligence of the heat control system, but both are meaningfully cheaper.

• Value for money score: 3 out of 5

Dyson Travel Supersonic specs

Dyson Supersonic Travel: design

• Classic Dyson-style cylindrical head design
• 32% smaller, 25% lighter than Supersonic
• Three heat settings, two airflow speeds, controlled via buttons on head
• Universal voltage auto-adapts from 100–240V
• Reviewed in Ceramic Pink / Rose Gold with styling concentrator

The Supersonic Travel is unmistakably a Dyson device, from the pink and rose gold accents to the same circular head above a narrow handle.

The biggest difference, visually, is in size. The Travel is 32% smaller (2.7 x 2.8 x 8.7in / 6.8 x 7.1 x 22.2cm) and and 25% lighter (0.7lbs / 330g) than the original Supersonic, but doesn't lose any of the essence. I'd be as bold to say it's the best-looking travel dryer I've ever tested.

Despite the size difference, the dryer still feels well-balanced. It doesn't fold in half like the GHD Flight+ or Dreame Pocket Pro, to name two rivals, but the whole design is sleek and compact enough to drop into a handbag or carry-on regardless. The only thing that really gets in the way is the chunky 6.6ft / 2m cord.

There's no travel case in the box, which at this price feels like a miss, particularly when the ghd Flight+ includes one at a fraction of the cost. Even a bag as standard, to protect what is far from a cheap dryer, would suffice but instead you have to pay an additional $39.99 / £45 for the privilege of a travel pouch.

To account for the lack of handle space on the Travel, versus the larger Dyson models, the controls are more concentrated on the head.

On the back of this cylindrical head, the airflow button sits on the left with the temperature button on the right. Each button has a row of LEDs above it – two lights for high speed or heat, one for the gentler settings. These LEDs also flash white if the filter needs cleaning, and red if there's a fault. The power button is then a slider on the back of the handle and this slider is used to control the cool shot.

If you've ever used a Dyson, these split controls will be familiar but they do take a little getting used to compared to other, standard dryers. To enable the cold air, give the slider a nudge upwards from its 'on' position. It isn't clear or obvious that you need to do this, unless you have an Airwrap and are familiar with how Dyson maximizes the use of its switches, and ended up being one of the only features on the Dyson Travel that didn't feel natural. Also the LEDs are great on paper, because you can see which setting is selected at a glance but given that they're on the rear of the head, it's not as intuitive as it sounds either.

The removable filter cage sits at the base of the handle and pulls down onto the cord for cleaning. You can remove the entire filter and wash it with water and this is a small but welcomed touch. It also means the Travel should last longer, which at this price is a blessing.

In the box is a magnetic smoothing nozzle, and thanks to Dyson's heat shield technology, the surface of this nozzle stays cool to the touch even during use. It's not exactly a wide default attachment range, especially at this price and the fact the Dreame Pocket Pro ships with five attachments.

However, you're unlikely to want to take lots of attachments when travelling, and the Supersonic Travel is compatible with the full Supersonic and Supersonic Nural attachment range, which is super useful if you already own either machine, and semi-useful if you can afford to buy any of them separately.

One thing to note, even though the Supersonic Travel automatically adjusts its voltage based on the country you're in, Dyson recommends using an adapter rated to 1,300W across the full voltage range rather than a universal adapter. It's not a dealbreaker but will help preserve the life of the Travel for longer.

• Design score: 4.5 out of 5

Dyson Supersonic Travel: performance

• Dries faster than a hotel dryer; notably quick for a compact machine
• Intelligent heat control measures air temperature 100 times per second
• Noise level: [XdB] in testing

The Supersonic Travel was tested daily over four weeks, including a trip to San Francisco where the universal voltage got its first real workout.

It's not the fastest dryer I've tested, but it was notably, and surprisingly, powerful for such a compact device. Drying time on my fine, mid-length curly hair ran to around 4 minutes on high heat and high airflow – faster than I expected from a machine this size. If you have thick or long hair, expect to be there for longer but even then, I can promise it will be faster than a hotel dryer and with more heat protection.

Speaking of protection, Dyson's intelligent heat control is one of the reasons the results hold up so well. With temperature measured more than 100 times per second, there's no scorching or uneven heat distribution – just consistent, controlled drying. The finish was always smooth with minimal frizz and enough volume to feel close to an at-home result. Over the review period my hair also felt softer.

The styling nozzle helps further with this. It guides the airflow for precise smoothing and shaping and clicks on magnetically. You can rotate it during styling, which is a bonus if you're trying to get different angles in a cramped hotel bathroom, but it never came loose. It's a delicate balance of movement and security that Dyson is great at across the Supersonic range.

One of the more compelling arguments for the Supersonic Travel's price is the attachment compatibility. Any attachment from the Supersonic or Supersonic Nural range clicks straight onto the Travel's magnetic barrel. This means if you already own either machine at home, you can simply pack whichever attachments you need rather than adapting your routine around whatever comes in the box.

I tested the Travel with the Gentle Air attachment alongside the Nural's Styling Concentrator. The Gentle Air attachment diffuses the airflow slightly for a cooler, softer result. This is useful for fine hair that doesn't need aggressive heat, and is particularly good for a second-day refresh, but I found I didn't have much of a need for it given the Travel's already lower, more gentle airflow.

My favorite attachment to use with the Travel (and any Dyson Supersonic model for that matter) is the Flyaway Smoother. It uses Coanda airflow to attract and flatten stray hairs on a finished style, and it works incredibly well. Especially on fine, naturally curly hair; the difference between a finished blow-dry with, and without it is noticeable. My only complaint is that it's a large attachment which doesn't lend itself well for travelling.

Despite these attachments originally being designed for the larger Supersonic models, the magnetic connection felt as secure on the Travel as they do on the Nural; clicking on with the same snap as on the full-size machine, and rotating smoothly during styling without any loosening mid-use.

Plugged in at my hotel in San Francisco with a country adapter, the Supersonic Travel performed exactly as it did at home. There was no perceptible difference in power or overheating. You can often tell when a dryer isn't performing at full strength when abroad by a drop in noise but this also wasn't noticeable with the Dyson Supersonic Travel. Another pleasant surprise.

Speaking of noise, the loudest the Travel got during my tests was 87dB on high speed, and the lowest was 83dB on low speed. The machine is certainly not silent, but it's comparable to – and in many cases quieter than – the sort of dryer you'd find mounted to a hotel room wall. It also carries over the slightly softer-pitched sound found on the wider Dyson range (of vacuums and hairdryers) which is less jarring on the ears than the decibel rating may suggest.

Elsewhere, maintenance is minimal. The filter cage requires periodic cleaning when the LEDs flash white, which involves removing it, washing it under a tap, and leaving it to dry naturally before reinserting. It's a six-step process that Dyson details clearly in the manual and it's not difficult at all.

• Performance score: 4.5 out of 5

How I tested the Dyson Supersonic Travel

I tested the Dyson Supersonic Travel hair dryer over four weeks on my fine, mid-length naturally curly hair.

I used it as my only dryer at home and took it on a trip to San Francisco. Testing included daily use across all heat and speed settings, use with the styling concentrator on wet and damp hair, and real-world travel use with a country adapter in a US hotel room.

I measured noise levels using the DecibelX app and compared drying times against my usual full-size dryer.

• First reviewed May 2026

Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop: 30-second review

The Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop is an innovative multi monitor design that essentially enables you to take the office with you. The four monitor set, stand and backpack is available as a complete system.

The build quality matches that of the TriScreen Pro side panels that I recently reviewed..

The set also comes with a stand which considering it's robust construction is surprisingly lightweight, and offers decent stability for the monitors through the test.

The monitors themselves are linked with the Transformer connectors, the same as those used on the TriScreen Pro, and as I found with that monitor setup the same is true here, careful alignment, then a firm press and a wiggle and click to ensure that everything is locked into place.

Once connected, the panels form a solid visual array with a decent of articulation once you discover that theres's additional flex in the connectors once you pull the two ends apart, once you get that shift in angle you can position them around or above your laptop screen.

For most of the test, I used the screens with my MacBook Pro M1 Max, and, as with the TriScreen, you need the USBDisplay app to get everything working; without it on the Mac at least, you’ll just see four blank monitors.

The installation process for USBDisplay does require a series of special permissions to be granted under Privacy and Security. Once done, the app lets you change the orientation of the screens via a menu accessible by clicking the icon at the top of your screen.

If you want to rotate a panel from horizontal (landscape) to vertical (portrait), you do it physically by unclipping the monitor and then clipping it back in your intended orientation, and then you can access the app to correct the orientation.

The screen arrangement is, as ever, configured through the main display settings for the OS, whether Windows or macOS.

In use, having four 16-inch panels arranged around my MacBook Pro was genuinely useful and offered a great way to organise my workspace, allocating an application to each screen. I found that I essentially had five displays: the main MacBook display, then the four mounted above.

While all the displays are identical in size, I used one as the main display, and the others for all other windows and content. The main Laptop screen I left empty for use with any color-critical apps I needed.

The display quality as covered by the benchmarking was good, although the results and specifications highlight the limited resolution, color accuracy and refresh rate; however, in a work environment and for pure productivity, the system, with the solid stand, absolutely makes sense and works exceptionally well.

Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From approximately $1059
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Directly from Lepow official store

The Lepow TriScreen Pro is available now direct from Lepow's website here, where you can select between triple and quad display systems. At time of review, it's priced at $769 (down from $819).

You can order the system with a US, UK, AU, JP, EU, and KR plug, depending on where in the world you're based.

The system includes four 16-inch panels with proprietary connectors, an HDMI cable, a USB-C cable, a power supply, and a carry case.

• Value: 4 / 5

Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop: Specs

Screens: 4 × 16-inch IPS matte anti-glare
Resolution: 1920 × 1200
Aspect ratio: 16:10
Brightness: 400 nits
Contrast: 1500:1
Color gamut: 100% sRGB
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Connector: Proprietary Transformer magnetic connector
Host connection: USB-C (data) + USB-A or USB-C (power)
Driver: One-time installation required
Dimensions: 420 × 360 × 30mm per panel

Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop: Design

Each of the four 16-inch panels in the Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop are identical, with a thin, lightweight construction that enables them to pack into the supplied backpack and makes everything ultra portable.

When it comes to the size and weight of each, the monitors weigh 1050g per unit and measure 420 × 360 × 30mm. When the kit arrives, everything is nicely boxed, but it’s worth assembling before use just to check on the construction. I noted that the central monitor really needs to be screwed into the stand using the VESA mounting holes. Otherwise, once the other monitors are attached, it can feel unstable; attaching the monitor fixes this.

That said if you need to transport it in the back pack the monitor really needs to be detached from the stand to avoid it getting damaged, so I found securing it with two of the four screws saved time when disasembling, this is definately something in the design that needs reworking.

Each display is otherwise identical, with a matte IPS panel, a slim profile, and a finish that gives them a premium look, which is reflected in the price. Unlike the large 27-inch display from Lepow that I looked at recently, these are lightweight with a polymer composite build rather than metal, which makes each panel relatively light, which is handy due to their intended portability. The actual construction feels robust, the panels are rigid, and there is no flex when handling them, which is relevant when attaching the Transformer connectors.

The Transformer connectors are a real innovation and allow each monitor to connect seamlessly, and then there are just two cables that are needed to connect to the laptop and power. Each monitor has two USB-C ports: one for the display and the other for power, and it’s up to you which you use to connect to the system.

The Transformer connectors then carry the data to each of the other monitors without the need for additional cables.

Each monitor in the review kit is identical, and these can be mounted on the lightweight CNC’d aluminium stand. This is incredibly lightweight, a perfect design for a portable system like this, and provides a good, solid base to support the weight of the monitors.

Once the first monitor is placed in the stand, the others can be clipped on, and, as previously mentioned, screwing the central monitor into the stand ensures absolute stability, this is a bit of a design flaw and not ideal.

It does take a few minutes to assemble and connect, but once done, the setup is solid and essentially lets you set up a larger workspace with plenty of screen real estate in a relatively space-limited location.

Then at the end of your work session, the breakdown of all the components is relatively quick, and everything, including your laptop, can be neatly packed into the backpack along with the cables and charger. It’s a tight fit, but there is room.

• Design: 4 / 5

Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop: Features

The Lepow 16" Quad Monitor is a modular display system that's been designed to work alongside your laptop to expand on the screen space you have available.

Each monitor features three connection points: one on each side and one on top, so you can configure the system as you want. For instance, you could have four panels in a horizontal row, a vertical stack, a mixed landscape-and-portrait that wraps around your laptop screen, a 2×2 grid, or in a triangle for meets where all participants can see a screen.

In practice, the configuration I found most useful for day-to-day work had two panels in landscape mode above the laptop screen and one on each side also in landscape mode. I tried portrait, but I think that's going to take a mind shift on my behalf. This configuration kept a relatively low profile while still providing plenty of screen space.

This meant I could keep my main applications centre focus, with email and music on the side panels, and an additional browser window open at the top. Everything was always visible, and there was never a need to switch between applications as you do when using a single panel.

While PC users are used to this multi-screen display, Mac users often face constraints, and this system requires some initial setup with the USBDisplay App. Once installed however, you’re good to go.

One interesting feature of the monitors is that, as they’re designed for productivity and office work, the aspect ratio is 16:10 rather than the more common 16:9. This just means you have additional screen height for email, document editing, spreadsheets, and web browsing in landscape orientation, and more horizontal width in portrait. This format really does make sense for the intended use.

Switching between display modes, like turning a screen from horizontal (landscape) to vertical (portrait), has two steps: physically move the panel, then choose the correct option in the USBDisplay menu bar app.

The monitors switch relatively quickly, and the other part is to change the monitor arrangement in the operating system’s display settings. This takes only a few seconds and is easy after a couple of goes. The USBDisplay app is extremely simple and one of those single-screen support programs that runs in the background until you need it, when it can be accessed from the menu bar.

While the system is designed for multiple monitors, the modular approach means you can use one, two, three or all four even on a Mac.

If you need however, each panel can operate as an independent USB display with its own power and data connections, so if you want to travel with just one additional monitor for your laptop, then you can.

• Features: 4 / 5

Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop: Performance

Through this test, I was surprised by just how portable these monitors were, and while the supplied backpack was quite plain and uninspiring, it was perfectly sized to hold all four panels, with seperate sections for each, as well as a large cavity for the stand, and still room to squeeze in my 16-inch MacBook Pro.

The backpack was a little weighty, but no more than my usual work camera backpack, and perfectly acceptable for daily use on a commute from home to the studio/office or another location.

Over the test period, I varied the setup I took with me, and early on, screwed one of the panels onto the stand to make a secure base for any other monitor combination I would take.

The stand, while simple, is perfectly designed, with the three sections folding down securely so it essentially packs down nearly flat. Each section can be angled up to the position you need, and large push-button releases and locks the angle.

Through the test, I found that my most common configuration was to have two landscape panels above the laptop, one landscape panel on each side, which gave five visible screens, and I assigned a specific application to each.

As an example, email on one, 3D printer monitoring on another, music and media controls on a third, server monitoring on the fourth, and the main laptop screen reserved for primary work.

The fact that the four monitors are identical makes them extremely easy to work with, and they essentially match the one on the MacBook Pro, at least in size.

Initially, it took a while to figure out the best configuration, but once settled on the monitor positioning it was then time to install the USBDisplay software. Locating the software wasn’t straightforward, and finding the correct page, which didn’t seem to be linked from any page on the manual or website, took time. You can use this link on the official site, and scroll down to the firmware section.

Once this software is installed, everything else is straightforward: the monitors will flicker to life, ready to be oriented using the USBDisplay app and arranged in the system display settings.

Out of the box, the calibration is OK and perfectly adequate for productivity. If you do want to match them to the MacBook Pro monitor, then a calibration device is needed. Just as a matter of course for the test, I used the Spyder X2 Ultra to calibrate and analyse the displays.

During calibration, it showed that despite the relative limitations of the panels, they still scored 5/5 for Gamut and Contrast, with a Tone Response of 4.5/5, which is impressive.

White Point, however, was quite low at 2.5/5, out of the box, with a measured reading of 7200–7500K, but it improved after calibration as the monitors are set to a yellowish warm by default. More notable was the Luminance Uniformity, which also scored 2.5/5, with brightness differences across the panels. I tested each, and each was slightly different, though in all cases you’d be hard-pressed to notice it visually. Really, this would only be an issue for photographers and videographers.

As the initial benchmarks showed, the panels arrive with a slight warm tint before calibration, which is easily corrected via the OSD. Running the Spyder X2 calibration across all four panels individually takes around an hour, but it brings them closer in representation to each other and to the MacBook Pro screen. For productivity applications, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, this really isn’t an issue, however this is something to note for color-sensitive work.

As these monitors are designed to be portable and will more than likely be used away from ideal office conditions, brightness is an important feature. Here, the benchmarking measured 333.2 nits at 100% against a claimed 300 nits.

In a studio or office environment at 50–75% brightness, the panels are a decent brightness, and in normal ambient light, there is no visibility issue. The 1920×1200 resolution is a bit of a limitation, and comparing these panels directly to the MacBook Pro display makes the difference apparent, but in use with Word and Excel rather than being used for creative displays, it is absolutely fine.

On Windows, the setup is considerably more straightforward than on Mac. Install the driver once you find it, again link above, connect the panels, and Windows handles the rest without prompting for permissions. Switching between Mac and PC required only swapping the USB-C and power cables with no reconfiguration of the panels.

• Performance: 4 / 5

Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop: Final verdict

The Lepow Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop is a great choice if you’re looking for a lightweight multi-screen solution that is ultra-portable. The way they all connect is innovative, and once you figure out how you like to position them, they really do become a very slick display option.

These are, however, designed for productivity rather than creative use and gaming, and with the limitation of 1920x1200 resolution at 60Hz and limited color depth, those specifications lack for the creative or game sector, however, they are ideal for productivity. However, as an addition to a MacBook Pro or ASUS ProArt monitor, there’s no arguing just how useful the multi-display system is, we all have to write emails, and do you really need an Adobe RGB class monitor for your music library?

What I also liked was that, because of the modular design, you can take one, two, three, or all four, and that choice is fully up to you. That flexibility makes them extremely useful.

Over a month of testing, I initially started taking the system with me as part of the test, but relatively quickly, the use alongside the MacBook and Netgear M7 made a powerful onsite solution giving plenty of space for documents and other media, and then the fact that it all packs into a handy backpack just made it ultra convenient.

It is a shame that the resolution is limited, and while the panels are 100% sRGB, which is fine for productivity for photographers and videographers, the fact that the minimum DCI-P3 requirement is not met and is way off the ideal of Adobe RGB accuracy means that most creative users will find them slightly limited on the creative front.

These modular monitors however seem perfectly suited for developers, business users, remote workers, or content creators who need multiple screens for productivity, monitoring, and organisation, rather than for color grading. The Lepow 16" Quad Monitor is excellent and offers something that few other products at this price can match.

Should I buy the Lepow 16" Quad Monitor for Laptop?

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For more picks, see our guide to the best business monitors and the best portable monitors we've tested.

Shokz OpenDots 2: One Minute Review

Shokz, the company specializing in bone conduction and open-ear buds, returns to the clip-on form factor with the Shokz OpenDots 2. It’s worth noting that the OpenDots 2 are one of two pairs released at the same time: they arrive alongside the cheaper Shokz OpenDots Air, which are missing a few features like wireless charging, waterproofing and bone conduction mics.

The clip-on earbud form factor offers both pros and cons. On the one hand, the shape is light and comfortable to wear day-to-day, and doesn’t interfere with glasses in the same way an over-ear hook might. They look almost jewellery-like, with my testing pair sporting a metal-and-pearl off-white sheen, sitting like a helix piercing over my ears.

On the other hand, they’re much less stable than over-ear hooks, with some brands being very wobbly or prone to dislodging. While the OpenDots 2, like most clip-on headphones with big drivers at the back, do suffer from being easily dislodged by the accidental brush of a hand or a hood (you’ll want to take extra care during commutes if you’re crammed into someone’s armpit on the train), they tend to stay in when left alone.

You might think that without a seal around your ear canal the OpenDots 2 might come up short on sound, and compared to market leaders like Apple’s AirPods that’s largely true. However, for open-ear headphones, the sound quality is excellent, with powerful bass despite the lack of a seal, and very little leakage. A dedicated Private equalizer mode also reportedly works to reduce leakage, although during my tests, even on Standard my office colleagues couldn’t hear any sound leakage at all, even when I had the volume turned up to Spinal-Tap-11 levels. Other EQ modes in the Shokz app include Vocal and Bass, and a Smart EQ option also exists, with users taken through six ‘A or B’ comparisons to find their optimal EQ mode.

Battery life is strong, with Shokz citing “up to 40 hours” from a full charge of the case. Wireless charging takes 3.5 hours, and a full wired USB-C charge takes two hours.

The launch of the OpenDots 2 sees Shokz attempting to push its way into a crowded category. One Shokz representative told me the company was hoping to eventually ‘replace AirPods’, and while I can’t see that happening anytime soon, the OpenDots 2 are probably the strongest clip-on earbuds I’ve ever tried; certainly in terms of sound quality, they’re up there with the Bose Ultra Opens while surpassing them in the fit stakes. They’re high-quality, durable, attractive-looking, and stable when left alone — just be careful when pulling your hood down.

Shokz OpenDots 2: Specifications

Shokz OpenDots 2: Price and availability

• $199.95 in the US
• £179.99 in the UK
• AU$339 in Australia

The Shokz OpenDots 2 cost $199.95 in the US, £179.99 in the UK, and AU$339 in Australia. That’s not cheap, and comparable to the cost of AirPods 4 with ANC ($179 / £179 / AU$299) — and the OpenDots 2 aren’t as versatile, considering that they’re effectively always in ‘transparency mode’ due to their design. If most people are going to drop this sort of money on a pair of wireless earbuds, it’s likely to be on a set that can both block out noise entirely and allow it to filter through when needed.

That being said, they’re not badly pitched (sorry) in value, being cheaper than the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which cost $299 / £299 / AU$449.95, at launch, and of similar quality. If you’re looking for cheaper options, the Shokz OpenDots Air are available at $129.95 / £129.99 / A$219, or you could opt for the Huawei Freeclip series.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Design

• Clamshell case
• Comfortable fit
• Some instability if knocked

The Shokz OpenDots 2 are designed in a similar way to most clip-on earbuds now: there’s a battery cylinder at the back featuring sensors with a tactile button, a driver designed to hover over the ear, and a band connecting the two, and gripping the device to the ear’s helix. In the case of the OpenDots 2, the speaker is in fact a sphere with two 11.8mm drivers facing inwards towards each other, creating a ball of sound, and a hole from which the sound is projected towards the eardrum.

From an aesthetics standpoint, the OpenDots 2 look very similar to the Bose Ultra Opens, right down to the mix of plastics and metallics on the buds and the clamshell case. That’s not a bad thing; they look very premium, and are extremely comfortable to wear. As a glasses wearer, I experienced none of the chafing or earache over-ear hooks give me, even when wearing the OpenDots 2 for long periods or during sweaty workouts. As mentioned, they can be knocked loose easily, and there’s no getting around this, as it’s simply a design issue with almost all clip-ons. Pulling a hood back immediately risks pulling out your expensive earbuds and sending them clattering to the floor.

The controls are intuitive — you can pause, play, adjust volume or cycle through tracks by pinching the barrels or tapping the bridges of the earbuds. The OpenDots 2 pack IP55 waterproofing, meaning they can withstand sweat, rain and dust but are unlikely to survive prolonged submersion or high-pressure washing. The case isn't waterproof either, so don’t leave them in your pocket and put them in the washing machine!

• Design score: 4.5/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Features

• Four EQ modes
• Multipoint connectivity
• Custom EQs to tailor sound to your liking

Despite being focused on open-ear products, Shokz is clearly working on sound and pitching the OpenDots 2 at everyday audiophiles rather than athletes. With four equalizer modes — Standard, Bass, Vocal and Private — plus a Custom EQ option, you’re able to tweak the sound to suit your needs and preferences.

After going through the custom EQ setup, which asks you six times to choose between two different versions of the same track, I noticed only a very minor difference to Standard, with slightly more powerful bass and clearer mids. This probably speaks to the quality of Shokz’ already excellent sound mixing, particularly on an open-ear bud.

Multipoint connectivity allows for two devices to connect via Bluetooth simultaneously, and I’ve been switching seamlessly between my phone and laptop with no issues. The option to use wireless charging is nice too. AI-powered call noise reduction with dual bone-conduction and ‘air conduction’ microphones makes calls sound nice and clear.

The OpenDots 2 are not packed with features such as live translation and heart rate sensing like Apple’s AirPods Pro 3, but they’re certainly not bad for the price.

• Features score: 4/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Performance

• Great sound
• Stable fit, apart from on contact
• Good battery life

The sound delivered by the Shokz OpenDots 2 is excellent, considering that these are open-ear headphones: they’re meaty and bassy, with minimal leakage even at higher volumes. In the office, I wore them comfortably all day while using my laptop, transitioning to my phone when I left the office, and only removing them to show curious colleagues, or pausing via a tap to have a conversation. Most outside sounds were blocked in a way that they aren’t with bone conduction headphones, as you have a driver sitting right over the top of your ear canal pumping vibrations down to your eardrum, whereas with the likes of the OpenRun Pro 2 your canal is left truly open.

However, while on a 10K run I kept my headphones on a low-to-middle volume, and I was still able to hear the bells of passing bikes and the occasional twitter of birds, so the open-ear design still does its job admirably. On my very sweaty run, the buds didn’t feel like they were pendulously wobbling, and I was able to pound the pavement and even shake my head without being afraid that they would dislodge. Only a nudge of my hand would cause them to come loose.

I find the OpenDots' listed battery stats to be largely accurate: I’ve been using these headphones for the better part of a week as I write this review, and only now is the case at 10% battery, with the buds themselves still on a full charge, and good for a further 10 hours.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Scorecard

Shokz OpenDots 2: Should I buy?

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Also consider

How I tested

I wore the Shokz OpenDots 2 for a week in different scenarios. I used them on my commute, in work, on a 10K run, in the gym, and even while sleeping, making use of the custom EQ functionality, asking colleagues if they could hear the audio I was listening to at various volumes, and testing their multipoint connectivity features.

First reviewed: June 2026

Parallels Desktop is often included among the best virtual machine software options for users who need to run Windows on a Mac. Its main appeal is convenience. Rather than presenting virtualization as a technical task, Parallels tries to make Windows feel like part of the Mac environment, which is still its biggest advantage over more manual alternatives.

This matters more on Apple Silicon Macs, where running Windows is no longer as simple as installing the standard x86 version of the operating system. Parallels focuses on Windows 11 Arm, and it handles much of the setup process for the user. That makes it especially useful for people who need Windows-only apps but do not want to manage installation media, drivers, or configuration details manually.

The result is a tool that feels more consumer-friendly than most virtualization platforms. It is not the cheapest option, and it is not free from compatibility limits, but it remains one of the few products in this category that can make running Windows on a Mac feel normal rather than experimental.

Parallels: Plans and pricing

Parallels Desktop is a commercial product, and pricing remains one of its main drawbacks. The Standard edition starts at $99.99 per year, while the Pro edition starts at $119.99 per year and the Business edition at $149.99 per year. Enterprise pricing is handled separately through sales.

The Standard edition is aimed at home and personal users, with resource limits of 8GB of virtual RAM and 4 virtual CPUs. The Pro and Business editions expand this significantly, supporting up to 128GB of virtual RAM and 32 virtual CPUs, while also adding more advanced tools for development, automation, testing, and business deployment.

A one-time purchase option is available for Standard users who prefer not to subscribe. However, the one-time Standard license only covers the version purchased. Future major upgrades require an additional payment, which makes the subscription model more practical for users who want to stay current with annual macOS and Parallels updates.

This pricing structure matters more than it used to. VMware Fusion is now available for free, which puts Parallels under more pressure to justify its cost. The argument for Parallels is no longer simply that it is the most capable option, but that it saves time and provides a more polished experience.

For casual users, Standard may be enough, especially if the goal is to run office software, web apps, or a small number of Windows-only tools. Users who need more CPU cores, more memory, command-line tools, or advanced development features will need to look at Pro. That makes Parallels more flexible, but also more expensive over time.

In practice, Parallels is best seen as a productivity expense rather than a casual utility. If Windows is central to your workflow on a Mac, the price can be easier to justify. If you only need a virtual machine occasionally, free alternatives become much more attractive.

Parallels: Features

Parallels Desktop provides a broad set of virtualization features, but its strongest features are the ones that reduce friction between Windows and macOS. Windows 11 installation is highly guided, and on Apple Silicon Macs the software is built around the Arm version of Windows, which is the most practical route for modern Mac hardware.

Coherence Mode remains one of the defining features. It allows Windows applications to appear alongside Mac apps without keeping the full Windows desktop in view. This makes Parallels feel less like a separate virtual machine and more like a compatibility layer for Windows software.

Integration goes further than display handling. Users can share folders, copy and paste between systems, drag files between Mac and Windows apps, and access Windows applications in ways that feel close to native macOS behavior. There are practical workflow benefits such as Spotlight access to Windows apps and files, and the ability to use Mac-side tools more naturally while working inside Windows.

Parallels also supports macOS and Linux virtual machines, although Windows remains the main reason most users buy it. More advanced editions add features aimed at developers and power users, including expanded CPU and memory allocation, command-line tools, and more control over virtual environments.

There are still limits. On Apple Silicon Macs, Windows runs as Windows 11 Arm. Many x86 Windows applications can work through Microsoft’s translation layer, but this is not the same as running every older Windows app natively. Parallels can also support x86 environments in some scenarios, but this is better treated as a specialist capability than a mainstream workflow.

Parallels: Interface and use

Parallels Desktop is strongest when judged as a user experience rather than just a virtualization engine. The setup process is one of the easiest in the category, especially compared to UTM or VMware Fusion. Instead of requiring users to build a virtual machine manually, Parallels guides the process and handles much of the configuration automatically.

This is the area where Parallels justifies much of its price. The interface is clean, direct, and designed for Mac users who may not have a technical background. Common tasks such as launching Windows, resizing the VM, sharing folders, or switching view modes are easy to find and rarely require deep configuration.

Coherence Mode is also central to the experience. By hiding the Windows desktop and letting Windows apps sit directly on the Mac desktop, Parallels reduces the sense that the user is working between two separate systems. This is not essential for everyone, but for users who spend hours moving between macOS and Windows applications, it can make a major difference.

The experience is not perfect. Some advanced settings still require a basic understanding of virtualization, and accessibility feedback from real users suggests that setup and certain preferences can still be awkward in specific workflows. But compared to most competing tools, Parallels remains the most approachable option for everyday Mac users who need Windows.

Parallels: Performance

In use, Parallels Desktop delivers strong performance for everyday Windows workloads, particularly on Apple Silicon Macs with enough memory. Office apps, browser-based tools, communication apps, and general productivity software are the areas where it feels most convincing.

On an M4 Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM, Windows was allocated four CPU cores and 8GB of memory, yet still handled large Excel files, Outlook, Chrome tabs, 2160p HDR video playback, and large spreadsheet operations smoothly. That is not a formal benchmark, but it supports the broader point that Parallels is well optimized for practical productivity work.

Recent reporting also suggests that Parallels can keep Windows 11 usable even on more limited Apple Silicon hardware for light productivity tasks. That does not mean every Mac is equally suited to virtualization. Running macOS and Windows at the same time places pressure on memory, and 8GB unified memory should be treated as workable for light use rather than ideal for sustained work.

For users who expect to run macOS and Windows side by side for extended periods, 16GB or more is a more realistic baseline. This becomes more important when using larger productivity apps, browser-heavy workflows, or Windows software that depends on translation layers rather than native Arm support.

Heavier workloads remain more complicated. CAD, 3D rendering, graphics-heavy Windows applications, and sustained multi-core workloads are better suited to higher-end Macs with more memory and stronger cooling. x86 translation also adds overhead, especially for older Windows software that has not been optimized for Arm.

Graphics support is useful but should not be overstated. Parallels supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1, which makes it suitable for some Windows applications and lighter games, but the lack of DirectX 12 support limits its usefulness for newer Windows games and graphics-heavy workloads. For productivity and compatibility, performance is strong. For demanding Windows gaming or professional 3D work, a dedicated Windows system remains the safer option.

Parallels: Support

Parallels benefits from a more structured support model than many free virtualization tools. Paid subscriptions include access to support channels, and the product is updated regularly to keep pace with macOS and Windows changes. This is particularly important on the Mac, where Apple platform updates can affect virtualization behavior quickly.

The company has also kept Parallels closely aligned with recent platform releases, including macOS Tahoe 26 and Windows 11 25H2. That level of update cadence is one of the reasons Parallels remains attractive for users who rely on Windows regularly and cannot afford long compatibility gaps.

Support is not the same for every user, though. Standard users and Pro users may have different expectations, and some real-user feedback still points to occasional issues around audio, accessibility, and settings behavior. For most mainstream users, support and documentation are good enough, but Parallels is not immune to friction.

Parallels: The competition

Parallels Desktop competes most directly with VMware Fusion and UTM. VMware Fusion is now the biggest pressure point because it is free, making Parallels’ subscription model harder to justify for users who only need occasional Windows access.

With VMware Fusion now available at no cost, Parallels has to justify its price through ease of use, integration, and ongoing Mac-focused updates rather than basic virtualization capability alone. That is still a strong argument for regular users, but it is less persuasive for technical users who are comfortable with more manual setup.

That said, Parallels remains easier to recommend for users who value convenience. VMware Fusion can run Windows on Mac, but setup and day-to-day workflow tend to feel less polished. UTM is also capable and free, but it requires more manual configuration and is less approachable for users who simply want Windows apps to work.

VirtualBox is less relevant on modern Apple Silicon Macs, especially for users who want a smooth Windows 11 experience. It remains important in the broader virtualization market, but Parallels operates in a more Mac-specific category where integration matters as much as raw virtualization capability.

In practice, Parallels remains the best option for Mac users who regularly depend on Windows software and want the least amount of friction. VMware Fusion and UTM are better value choices, especially for technical users, but Parallels still offers the most refined overall experience. Its main challenge is no longer capability, but whether that refinement is worth the price.

Parallels: Final Verdict

Parallels Desktop remains the most polished virtualization tool for Mac users who need regular access to Windows. Its biggest advantage is not simply that it can run another operating system, but how smoothly it integrates Windows into the macOS workflow. Setup is straightforward, Windows 11 can be installed with minimal effort, and features such as Coherence Mode, shared files, drag-and-drop, and Mac-style app access make the experience feel more refined than most alternatives.

That refinement comes with a cost. Parallels is no longer competing only against awkward or limited free tools, but also against VMware Fusion, which is now available at no cost. This makes the pricing harder to ignore, especially for users who only need occasional access to Windows.

For Mac users who rely on Windows apps regularly, Parallels still makes a strong case. It is fast, convenient, and highly integrated, but users with lighter needs may find that the price is harder to justify than before.

Microsoft’s approach to virtualization combines two distinct tools under the same ecosystem. Hyper-V serves as the primary platform for running full virtual machines, while Windows Sandbox provides a lightweight, temporary environment for quick testing. Together, they are often considered among the best virtual machine software options, particularly for users who already rely on Windows as their primary platform.

Unlike standalone virtualization tools, Hyper-V is built directly into Windows, which shapes both its strengths and its limitations. It benefits from deep system integration and consistent performance, but it also follows a more technical, system-oriented design that can make it less approachable for new users. Sandbox, by contrast, focuses entirely on simplicity, offering a clean and disposable environment that launches quickly and resets after each session.

Microsoft Hyper-V / Sandbox: Plans and pricing

Hyper-V and Windows Sandbox are not sold as standalone products. Instead, they are included as optional features within Windows Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

For users already within the Microsoft ecosystem, this effectively makes them free to use. There are no separate licensing tiers or feature restrictions once the appropriate Windows edition is available. However, this also means that users on Windows Home do not have access to the full functionality without upgrading.

With competing tools such as VMware Workstation Pro now also available at no cost, Hyper-V’s value lies less in pricing and more in its native integration with Windows.

Support is handled through Microsoft’s broader support structure rather than a dedicated product channel. While documentation and community resources are extensive, direct support is typically tied to enterprise agreements rather than individual use.

Microsoft Hyper-V / Sandbox: Features

Hyper-V provides a comprehensive set of virtualization features suited for both development and enterprise scenarios. It supports a wide range of guest operating systems and allows detailed allocation of CPU, memory, and storage resources across multiple virtual machines.

Core functionality includes checkpoints, virtual networking, and the ability to run multiple environments simultaneously. These features make it suitable for testing, development, and structured lab environments where repeatability and isolation are important.

The platform also benefits from its integration with the wider Windows ecosystem. Tools such as PowerShell and Windows Admin Center extend its capabilities, allowing more advanced configuration and automation for users who need greater control.

More recent developments have expanded its flexibility further, including GPU Partitioning (GPU-P), which allows virtual machines to share the host’s graphics resources more efficiently. While this is primarily aimed at professional workloads, it reflects a broader shift toward more demanding use cases.

Windows Sandbox takes a different approach. It provides a minimal, disposable environment that launches quickly and runs a clean instance of Windows. Any changes made within the Sandbox are discarded once it is closed, making it particularly useful for testing unknown applications or files without affecting the host system.

Microsoft Hyper-V / Sandbox: Interface and use

Hyper-V Manager presents a structured but dated interface, with a layout that prioritizes functionality over usability. Virtual machines are managed through a central console, with configuration options exposed through menus that reflect the platform’s administrative origins.

Creating a virtual machine involves a guided process, but it still requires familiarity with concepts such as virtual switches and resource allocation. Compared to more modern tools, the workflow can feel less intuitive, especially for first-time users.

Networking is one of the more demanding aspects. Basic connectivity is handled automatically through the Default Switch, while more advanced configurations still require manual setup and a clearer understanding of how virtual networking works.

Windows Sandbox, on the other hand, is intentionally simple. It launches as a clean desktop environment within seconds and requires little to no configuration. Files can be tested quickly and safely, then discarded when the session ends.

This contrast defines the overall experience. Hyper-V focuses on control and flexibility, while Sandbox is built for speed and convenience.

Microsoft Hyper-V / Sandbox: Performance

In use, Hyper-V delivers stable and efficient performance across a range of typical workloads. Virtual machines start quickly and remain responsive, particularly when running standard operating systems such as Windows or common Linux distributions. Everyday tasks such as software testing, browsing, and light development work run smoothly on adequately provisioned systems.

Because it is integrated into Windows, resource handling tends to be consistent. Multiple virtual machines can run in parallel without major instability, provided that system resources are properly allocated. Performance scaling is predictable, with slowdowns appearing gradually under load rather than as sudden drops.

This becomes more apparent in multi-VM scenarios. Running several environments at once remains manageable, making Hyper-V a practical choice for development workflows that rely on parallel systems. While it may not always feel as responsive as more polished alternatives in short bursts, it maintains stability over longer sessions.

Disk and memory behavior are generally reliable, although not optimized for peak speed. In I/O-intensive scenarios, such as working with large virtual disks, it can feel slightly heavier than some competing tools. However, it avoids the inconsistent performance fluctuations sometimes seen in lighter virtualization platforms.

Long-term stability is one of its stronger points. Virtual machines remain usable over extended sessions, and overall system behavior stays consistent. This makes Hyper-V well suited to users who rely on persistent environments rather than short, isolated tasks.

Windows Sandbox follows a different performance profile. It launches quickly and runs smoothly for short testing sessions, benefiting from its lightweight and disposable design. Because it relies on a shared system image, startup times are significantly shorter than those of a full virtual machine. However, it is not intended for sustained workloads or complex configurations.

On Windows 11, storing virtual disks on a Dev Drive (ReFS) can improve I/O performance in development-heavy workflows.

Microsoft Hyper-V / Sandbox: Support

Hyper-V benefits from extensive documentation and a large user base, particularly in enterprise environments. Guidance is widely available through official documentation, community forums, and third-party resources.

However, support is not structured as a standalone product offering. Direct assistance is typically tied to broader Microsoft support agreements, which may limit accessibility for individual users compared to commercial virtualization platforms with dedicated support channels.

Microsoft Hyper-V / Sandbox: The competition

Hyper-V operates in a competitive space that includes both free and commercial virtualization tools.

Oracle VM VirtualBox remains the most accessible free alternative, offering cross-platform support and a simpler setup process, though with less consistency in performance.

VMware Workstation Pro provides a more polished experience, with a clearer interface and smoother day-to-day usability. It is generally easier to manage, even if Hyper-V offers tighter integration within Windows.

On macOS, Parallels Desktop stands out for its seamless integration and ease of use, targeting a different audience but highlighting the importance of user experience in this category.

Hyper-V’s strength lies in its stability and tight Windows integration rather than its interface. It is best suited to users who prioritize control and long-term reliability within a Windows environment.

Microsoft Hyper-V / Sandbox: Final Verdict

Microsoft Hyper-V is a capable and deeply integrated virtualization platform that delivers consistent performance and a wide range of features, particularly for users already working within the Windows ecosystem. Its enterprise background is evident in both its capabilities and its interface, which prioritizes control over ease of use.

Windows Sandbox complements this approach by providing a fast, disposable environment for safely testing files and applications without long-term setup. It is one of the simplest ways to isolate potentially risky software, even if its functionality is intentionally limited.

Taken together, Hyper-V and Sandbox offer a practical and reliable solution. They excel in stability and integration, but fall short of the polish and accessibility found in more user-focused virtualization tools.

Think portable PC monitor and something pretty puny probably comes to mind. What you're probably not imaging is folding contraption with dual 24-inch 1080p displays. What you probably didn't think of is the extraordinary Acer PD243Y E Portable Monitor.

It's immediately obvious that the term "portable" is being used pretty liberally by this unusual dual-screen monitor. You're not going to be slipping it into a small bag with your 13-inch thin-and-light laptop.

However, it is much more compact and transportable than a typical 24-inch PC monitor, let alone a pair of them. So, it's not designed to be taken to the coffee shop, even if that isn't actually out of the question if you could put up with the attention you'd surely attract.

Instead, the Acer PD243Y E Portable Monitor makes more sense for someone wanting, perhaps, to take an additional screen with them on a long trip or for work presentations, that sort of thing. And for those kinds of remits, the basic ergonomics make sense. But what about the features and performance? Time to find out.

Acer PD243Y E: Design and features

• Surprisingly portable for a dual 24-inch display
• Clever hinge and ergonomics
• No USB-C power delivery

We'll come to the performance of the Acer PD243Y E Portable Monitor's dual 24-inch panels momentarily. But the real novelty here involves packaging them into something relatively portable.

OK, you're not going to sling this dual-24-inch contraption into your shoulder bag. But Acer has done a good job of keeping the chassis compact and the bezels slim. All told, it weighs in at 4.4kg, which really is pretty impressive given the sheer amount of screen on offer.

The ergonomics are clever, too. The two screens are attached via a sturdy hinge which folds around over 300 degrees. Combined with a kickstand on the lower panel, you can arrange the displays in a variety of configurations, including vertically stacked or tent mode. The latter setup could be handy for making presentations and screen sharing.

Incidentally, the displays automatically reorient in Windows when you fold into tent mode and both panels run off a single USB-C connection. However, all of that only applies to Windows. Support for Apple Macs is more limited. A MacBook Air, for instance, can only drive one external display, so won't output to both panels.

Speaking of connectivity, there's a single HDMI input and two USB-C ports. Either of later can be used for powering the displays via the included adapter or video input. Sadly, however, neither provides power-out. So, you can't, for instance, hook up a laptop via USB-C and both drive the display and keep the laptop charged.

That's a bit of a pity because it increases cable clutter. You'll need two power adapters, one for your laptop and one for this display, for long-duration use. What's more, all the ports are located on one side of the lower display. Ideally, at least one USB-C on the other side to give you more cable management options would have been welcome.

Acer PD243Y E: Performance

• Relatively low resolution
• No HDR support
• Good viewing angles

Dual 24-inch displays undeniably provide a huge amount of physical screen real estate in the context of a portable monitor. But usable screen space also depends on resolution, and here the Acer PD243Y E Portable Monitor is less impressive.

The 24-inch panels are native 1080p or 1,920 by 1,080 pixels. That kind of resolution would be pretty low spec these days on a 15-inch laptop, let alone panels this size, even if the comparison with conventional desktop monitors is probably more apt.

Anyway, the point is that, physically, these screens have plenty of space to run two app windows per panel and thus four across the two displays. But because of the relatively low resolution, you may find limitations in that regard. You only have 960 horizontal pixels each for two two app windows on one panel, for instance.

But whatever your metric, 1080p certainly isn't a huge resolution when applied to a 24-inch in terms of pixel density, too. That means fonts look pretty rough and the image detail just isn't terribly sharp.

In other regards, these displays are tolerable but inferior to what you'd expect from a conventional display, be that a desktop monitor or laptop panel. Peak brightness is 250 nits, which means they struggle a bit in really bright ambient light, and there's no HDR support at all.

That said, they do support 100Hz refresh and so feel fairly responsive, and the basic calibration is decent. Thanks to IPS panel tech, the viewing angles are good too, which will be appreciated for presentations and screen sharing.

Acer PD243Y E: Final verdict

There's a lot to like about the Acer PD243Y E Portable Monitor. It's surprisingly portable for something that offers dual 24-inch displays making it usable in a pretty wide array of contexts.

The ergonomics and build quality are good, too. The hinge and kick stand offer a wide range of configuration options both for personal use and for presentations or screen sharing. In those regards, this dual-screen monitor could be an extremely useful tool. The connectivity on offer via HDMI and USB-C is reasonable, too.

The quality of the panels is mostly acceptable, too. OK, the IPS panels only hit 250 nits, and there's no HDR support. But the colours and calibration are good enough for a portable monitor setup.

What isn't so impressive is the 1080p-per-panel resolution. It somewhat limits the utility of the Acer PD243Y E Portable Monitor in terms of multitasking and it definitely has an obvious impact on image clarity and text crispness.

If this display was 1440p per panel it would make for a pretty fantastic proposition for all round usage, including productivity work. As it is with dual-1080p, the appeal is narrowed somewhat. As a device for presentation and screen sharing, 1080p will often be just fine. But if you were hoping to use this dual-display contraption for, say, video editing or day trading while travelling, the low resolution is a bit of a pity.

For more displays, we've reviewed the best business monitors and the best portable monitors.

Scuf Omega: one-minute review

The Scuf Omega is the Corsair subsidiary’s latest PlayStation 5-compatible controller. It’s received the PlayStation seal of approval as an officially-licensed product, so you’d expect it to be of at least a reasonably high quality, right?

Here’s the thing. I’ve reviewed loads of the best PS5 controllers, including a bunch of those at the premium price level, including the Razer Raiju V3 Pro, DualSense Edge, and the Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded. The Scuf Omega hasn’t outshone any of them in my testing, even though, on paper, it should win out with its feature set and customization options.

So, where has Scuf gone wrong? Much of it comes down to build quality. While it’s solid enough in the hands - and actually very comfortable - most individual parts can be removed, like the faceplate, touchpad plate, d-pad, face buttons, and the thumbsticks. In isolation, these parts (and the accessories included in the box, like button and paddle blanks and optional long-shaft thumbsticks) feel cheap and flimsy.

I’m also not at all a fan of the optional paddle buttons on the sides of the controller. These are far too easy to press accidentally, and because they come pre-mapped out of the box, even gently tapping one mid-game can feel like the video game equivalent of stepping on a Lego brick.

I’ll get into other issues I have with the Scuf Omega below, but I want to stress it’s not all bad news. Those side buttons and paddles are removable and can be replaced with included blanking plates, preventing accidental presses entirely if you don’t really feel like using them (though this is a controller squarely aimed at players who do appreciate these additional input options).

And in general, actually playing games with the Scuf Omega is a pretty wonderful experience. The d-pad and face buttons are extremely tactile with a ludicrously short travel. The textured grips are comfortable, and the controller just sits in your hands so nicely. I adore the digital trigger option here, too, giving them the exact same immediacy as the buttons you’ll be pressing the most.

Again, there’s plenty Scuf has gotten right with the Omega, but I just can’t recommend it at the triple-digit sticker price when it’s not as solidly or thoughtfully built as competing premium options.

Scuf Omega: price and availability

• List price: $219.99 / £209.99 (around AU$300)
• Available to buy now from Scuf’s website
• Many special liveries are available, but they are a tad pricier

It’s easy to baulk at the price of the Scuf Omega. However, this is the bracket where most third-party PS5 controllers sit. For example, the Razer Raiju V3 Pro comes in at $219.99 / £199.99, while the official DualSense Edge can be had for $199.99 / £199.99. Meanwhile, there’s the similarly modular Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded, which will set you back $209.99 / £179.99. It’s an expensive space.

The thing is, if you want to buy a PS5 controller that isn’t the standard DualSense, options outside of that premium space are practically non-existent. I could forgive many of the Scuf Omega’s shortcomings if it were made available at a more tempting mid-range price.

We know that Sony can be challenging to work with for third-parties, especially as it reserves features like haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and native PS5 wireless connectivity for its own controller hardware. That often means that brands stick to PC, Xbox, or Nintendo consoles, thus drying up any meaningful budget-to-mid-range alternatives on PlayStation.

Still, when I look at controllers in other spaces, like the 8BitDo Pro 3 or GameSir Tarantula Pro, I’m seeing similar premium features on those pads, like Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR) sticks and extra remappable buttons. All available for much, much less.

My two cents right now? Wait for a sale. If you see the Scuf Omega drop by around 20-25% over a major sales period, then I’d say that’s a good time to consider picking one up.

Scuf Omega: Specs

Scuf Omega: design and features

• Wonderful ergonomics
• Lightweight and comfortable in hand
• Removable parts feel a bit cheap and flimsy

The Scuf Omega is a mixed bag on the design front, but it has nailed it on the ergonomics front. The controller feels fantastic in the hands, resting snugly and firmly, thanks to the rugged textured grips on the back half of the controller. It’s close in shape to the DualSense Wireless Controller, though the Omega’s row of G1 to G5 buttons at the bottom between the grips adds some slight extra volume.

If you read that last sentence and thought “wow, that’s a lot of buttons,” then you’d be right. The Scuf Omega is not wanting when it comes to ancillary features. Those G1 to G5 buttons mainly govern headset volume and mic muting (which is lovely to have on the controller itself), though G1 and G5 are remappable on PS5.

Beyond those, you have a dedicated profile switching button, four paddle buttons on the back (two of which can be removed and replaced with the included blanking panels), a pair of side bumpers (one on each flank), and trigger locks that are built right into the triggers themselves.

The central touchpad also works as it would on a DualSense, enabling cursor movement and gestures in supporting games. That isn’t something you see often with third-party PS5 controllers, which often opt for the basic touchpad clicks and no actual touch functionality.

One design aspect I do find to be a bit finicky is how the Omega handles connectivity options. You can swap between 2.4GHz, Bluetooth, and wired connections with one switch, and PS5 and PC connectivity with another. That isn’t uncommon for third-party PS5 controllers.

The problem is that these switches are hidden beneath the Omega’s faceplate. So yes, that means you have to remove the faceplate every time you want to make a connectivity change. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s an irksome extra step you’ll need to contend with if you regularly swap between PS5 and PC play, for example.

It’s not just the faceplate that’s removable here, though. Practically every module on the Omega - from the sticks and touchpad plate to the rear paddles, d-pad, and face buttons - can all be taken out and swapped for other parts (many of which are sold on Scuf’s website separately). On the one hand, I like this; it gives the Omega the kind of customizable flair usually reserved for speciality controllers like fight sticks.

On the other hand, it reveals the Omega’s build quality isn’t at all what it seems. When put together, it feels solid enough. However, its individual parts in isolation feel rather cheap. Especially the faceplate, which feels brittle enough to snap in half with little effort. Obviously, I would never do this, and I imagine you wouldn’t, either. But a mischievous nephew might. Just something to be cautious about if you choose to buy the Scuf Omega yourself.

There are also some instances where the controller just doesn’t feel all that thoughtfully put together. Those blanking plates for the rear and side paddles can start to feel loose, and I often need to secure them back in place. The touchpad plate almost has the opposite issue, where it can sometimes get wedged to the left or right. While this didn’t have a profound impact on play, it does add to that feeling of cheapness that I shouldn’t expect from a controller that costs as much as the Omega does.

Scuf Omega: Performance

• Marvelous play experience
• Around 17 hours of battery life
• Some of the nicest-feeling buttons in the business

I’m going to keep this section short because I have virtually no complaints (I have one, but I’ll get to that) about the Scuf Omega’s game performance. It may fall short of the competition on build quality, but when it comes to actually playing games, the Omega does it better than any PS5 controller I’ve tested to date. Yes, even Sony’s own DualSense Edge.

Performance is where the Scuf Omega just about clinches a four-star rating from me. I adore the clicky immediacy of its d-pad and face buttons, both of which are powered by the brand’s own Omron mechanical switches. And on the thumbsticks front, you’ll have no issues with drift, thanks to Scuf leveraging Hall effect-like TMR tech here.

I think my favorite aspect of the Scuf Omega is its two-way trigger locks, though. These are housed on the underside of the triggers themselves, which is a really thoughtful design touch. I love the digital trigger press here, which provides fast, fluid inputs for shooters like Fortnite and Call of Duty. You can switch back to a more traditional analog pull at any time, too, which makes the Omega a dab hand at racing games like Forza Horizon 6.

It'd be almost a slam dunk if it weren’t for the awkward and frankly annoying side bumpers. Aesthetically, they’re horrible, jutting out of the sides of the pad where your fingers can accidentally press them all too easily. And because they come pre-mapped, my first hour or so with the Omega came with no shortage of mispresses in-game.

Sure, there’s a use case for pro players who like quick and easy access to input shortcuts, but they’re wholly unnecessary for casual folks. After a bit of testing, I swiftly swapped them out for the side blanking paddles.

Should I buy the Scuf Omega?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Scuf Omega: Also consider

If you’re not quite feeling the Scuf Omega, here’s a quick glance at a couple of other PS5-facing third-party options.

How I tested the Scuf Omega

• Tested for two weeks
• Tested on both PS5 and PC
• Played a variety of single and multiplayer games

I tested the Scuf Omega for roughly two weeks for this review. In that time, I made use of the controller’s broad swathe of features, including its remappable buttons and swappable modules. Games I played with the Scuf Omega include Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Saros on PS5, as well as Final Fantasy 14 Online and Forza Horizon 6 on PC, broadly aiming to test out a variety of game genres with the controller.

First reviewed May 2026

Read more about how we test

Genki Dual Wield Charging Grips and Base: Review

Genki’s Joy-Con 2 charging accessory has no pretensions of being a complicated, feature-packed gimmick. Rather, it commits to a minimal design and doing the simple things well. There are just two grips for your Joy-Con 2 pads, and two ports on the dock to charge them.

The basic square design of this dock doesn’t push the boat out aesthetically, but I was impressed by just how thin it is. There’s just enough for a USB-C port to be squeezed in on one end.

The grips attach magnetically to the dock, so there’s no need to press a button. I found it a little hard to tell whether they were correctly seated, as there’s little feedback, either physical or audible, when you slot them into place. Once in, they aren’t particularly sturdy; I can imagine a heavy knock dislodging them, but they’re fit for purpose otherwise.

There is a button to release the grips, but this doesn’t offer the smoothest operation, feeling a little cheap and flimsy. It’s big, at least, which at least makes it easy to press. Overall, the dock isn’t as well made as some of the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories around, but it’s adequate for the job.

It took just over three hours to fully charge a single Joy-Con 2 set, which is reasonable. There are LED lights either side of each docking point in the form of plus and minus signs, corresponding to their button counterparts on the Joy-Con 2. These are bright and clear, making them easy to see at a glance.

However, they don’t actually illuminate while the controllers charge, which is a little annoying. They only turn green once the Joy-Con 2s are fully charged, and even then, they go out after a short amount of time.

Like the base, the grips have a simple form. They’re also quite thin, but feel better made than the dock itself. They’re very solid and sturdy, but also quite light.

The Joy-Cons snap magnetically to the sides, just as do to the Switch 2 itself. They’re reasonably secure here, but there is a noticeable amount of play. Under normal usage, though, they remained stable and I was never worried about them coming loose. They’re also slightly translucent, which allows the battery indicators on the Joy-Cons to shine through.

They have a curious triangle shape, which means the Joy-Cons lean inwards at the top. This didn’t cause an issue for me, though, and I could play games such as Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Metroid Dread just fine.

The hole in the center allows you to partially wrap your fingers into them, but I found it too small to wrap mine all the way around. Combined with the flat top and undersides of the grips, they aren’t as ergonomic as the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers. You’d be better off combining these grips with those that provide some underhand support on the Joy-Cons themselves, to make it feel like a traditional gamepad.

There’s a USB-C port on top, allowing you to connect to the console and charge while you play. However, the included cable is quite short, so you’ll struggle to use it in a TV setup.

Genki Dual Wield Nintendo Switch 2 Charging Station review: Price and availability

The Genki Dual Wield costs £35.99 and is available now in one colorway: black.

This is a price reasonable for what it offers. Not only are there grips and charging docks for two sets of Joy-Con 2 controllers, but the fact that it has a USB-C port means you have more options to connect to sources, rather than relying on yet another single-use power adapter you’ll have to throw away once it’s served its purpose. It ticks many boxes if all you’re after is a cheap and easy way to hold and charge two sets of Joy-Con 2 controllers.

Should I buy the Genki Dual Wield Nintendo Switch 2 Charging Station?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Genki Dual Wield Charging Grips and Base review: Also consider

How I tested the Genki Dual Wield Charging Grips and Base

I tested the Genki Dual Wield for several days. I used it to charge a single set of Joy-Cons from flat to full, using a 67W charger. I also used the grips to play various Switch 2 games.

I’ve been gaming for decades, and have used all sorts of gaming accessories. I also own the DualSense Charging Station — one of the best PS5 accessories around — and have used other Switch and Switch 2 Joy-Con grips before. I’ve also reviewed a large number of controllers and other gaming peripherals.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: June 2026

Dreame AirStyle Era: two-minute review

The Dreame AirStyle Era is an eight-in-one multi-styler that works as a dryer and creates smooth, curly, bouncy, or straightened styles from a single device.

On paper, it looks like one for TechRadar's best hair styler roundup, and it's the follow-up to the seven-in-one AirStyle Pro, addressing some of that model's most obvious gaps. Namely, adding a diffuser for the first time, and replacing the Pro's flyaway attachment with a U-shaped straightening nozzle.

The auto-wrap curl barrels remain the headline act. The 360-degree airflow draws hair in automatically and produces bouncy, natural-looking curls without the need to manually wind sections around a barrel.

For fine to medium hair, the results are impressive, and at $349.99 / £349 / AU$699 the Era undercuts the Dyson Airwrap by $250 / £130 / AU$150 while producing comparable curl results as an Airwrap alternative. The smoothing brushes perform well too, and the diffuser is a welcome addition for anyone with naturally curly or wavy hair.

The issues are harder to ignore, though. The maximum temperature of 176F / 80C — unchanged from the AirStyle Pro — will be a limiting factor for anyone with thicker or longer hair. You could rope in one of the best hair dryers for that first stage, but that rather defeats the point of an all-in-one tool. The straightening nozzle is also more fiddly than expected, not to mention time consuming.

None of these are dealbreakers on their own, but together they add up to a tool that falls slightly short of its potential. The Era is still the most complete multi-styler Dreame has produced, and the most attractive multi-styler I've tested, and at this price it's a worthy Airwrap dupe, but it needs to be better than it is in a few key areas to make a truly compelling case.

That's the two-minute version; read on for my full Dreame AirStyle Era review.

Dreame AirStyle Era review: price & availability

• List price: $349.99 / £349 / AU$699
• Available: US, Australia and UK
• Launched: May 2026

The Dreame AirStyle Era costs $349.99 / £349 / AU$699 and is available directly from Dreame and Amazon in the US, Dreame in the UK, and from Dreame Australia as well as from several third-party retailers.

It sits closer in price to the $279.99 Shark FlexStyle in the US (which costs AU$499 in Australia), but is more akin in terms of features and attachments to the $599.99 / AU$849 Dyson Airwrap. It's the follow-up to Dreame's seven-in-one AirStyle Pro, which had a higher list price of $399.99 in the US but was rarely sold at that, while the latter's list price is lower in Australia at AU$599.

(There are also other, cheaper Dyson Airwrap dupes, but few come with the auto-wrap curl barrels of these four stylers.)

In comparison to its predecessor, the AirStyle Era swaps the Flyaway Attachment of the Pro for a U-shaped straightening nozzle and adds a diffuser for the first time, addressing one of the glaring gaps in the original's feature set.

It's also had a meaningful upgrade under the hood — the NTC temperature sensor now checks 1,000 times per second compared to 300 on the AirStyle Pro, which in practice means more consistent heat distribution and less risk of spikes that could cause damage.

• Value for money score: 3.5 out of 5

Dreame AirStyle Era specs

The UK listing features different specifications than the US page – 28°C/55°C/80°C for temperatures and 50m/s, 57m/s, 65m/s for wind speeds. We tested the US model so use the US figures throughout.

Dreame AirStyle Era review: design

• Pink and bronze colorway with pebbled leather-texture grip
• Eight attachments covering drying, curling, straightening, smoothing and diffusing
• Twist-on mechanism same as the AirStyle Pro but more secure
• Comes with a storage box and bag

The Dreame AirStyle Era follows the same basic design as its predecessor (and all other multi-stylers for that matter) – a tube-shaped dryer onto which you twist different styling heads.

It comes in a single pink colorway, not too dissimilar to the pink Dyson Airwrap i.d, with bronze accents at either end, and a soft pebbled leather-texture grip running the length of the handle.

It feels and looks solid and luxurious, and at 0.64lbs without the cord, it's light enough that your arm doesn't start aching even when working through a full set of curls.

The controls consist of two buttons with LEDs that let you cycle through the two heat settings. and three wind speeds. The cool shot is built into the top of the on/off slider rather than given its own dedicated button, and you enable and disable it by sliding up once for on, and sliding up again for off.

These controls sit at a natural thumb position on the handle and toe a delicate line between being easy to control mid-style and difficult to press accidentally. This is much rarer on stylers than it should be.

At the base of the handle is a removable dual intake filter— an inner stainless steel mesh that keeps fine hair and particles out of the motor, and an outer mesh that prevents tangling.

A small cleaning brush is included for maintenance, and the filter is straightforward to remove and reattach. Attached to this filter is the cord that runs to 9.2ft / 2.8m with a 360-degree anti-tangle swivel at the handle end.

Each of the eight attachments twist on using the same mechanism as the AirStyle Pro, but unlike the heads on the older model, the Era's attachments securely lock into place because they're also magnetic. This was a major complaint in our AirStyle Pro review and I'm glad it's been resolved.

In terms of the attachments, the line-up is as follows:

• Fast dryer: A concentrated nozzle for quick drying
• Straightening nozzle: U-shaped head with dual airflow channels that direct air downward to smooth and straighten without heating plates
• Diffuser: Bowl diffuser with prongs for dry curls without disrupting them
• 32mm auto-wrap barrels (x2): One for left curls, one for right; 360-degree airflow draws hair in to create curls without manually winding sections
• Soft smoothing brush: Spherical teeth designed for fine, fragile, or chemically treated hair
• Hard smoothing brush: Conical teeth for coarser, thicker, or heavily product-styled hair
• Round volumizing brush: Wider tooth spacing to reduce tangling, with perforations to diffuse airflow and create lift at the roots

The two additions — the straightening nozzle and diffuser — address the most obvious gaps in the original AirStyle Pro's feature set.

If you wanted smooth, straight hair or defined natural curls from the Pro, you needed separate tools entirely. The Era fixes that, and the result is a kit that not only covers the full range of everyday styling needs, but it makes it the only styler that can truly rival the Dyson Airwrap in terms of scope and scale.

Elsewhere, everything ships in a leather-textured storage box that keeps the attachments organized and easy to find, plus you get a travel bag if you need something more portable.

• Design score: 4.5 out of 5

Dreame AirStyle Era review: performance

• Fast dryer attachment works well on fine to medium hair; may struggle with thicker, longer hair
• Auto-wrap curling barrels produce good results but swapping between directions is fiddly
• Straightening nozzle is less effective than the flyaway attachment it replaces

I started, as Dreame recommends, by removing most of the water in my hair with the fast dryer attachment. Like all multi-stylers of this type, you need to get hair to around 80% dry before switching to any of the styling attachments for best results, and the fast dryer handled that first stage well enough on my fine, shoulder-length hair.

It's not the hottest of stylers though, and anyone with thicker or longer hair may find themselves reaching for a standalone dryer to get there faster. This was a complaint with the original Pro and hasn't been fixed, it seems.

The auto-wrap curling barrels are where the Era earns its keep. The 360-degree airflow draws hair in and wraps it around the barrel automatically, producing bouncy, defined curls without the need to manually wind sections. The results hold well, and the curls have a natural quality that can be hard to achieve with traditional tongs. The catch is that if you want the curls to go in different directions, you need to physically swap between the left and right attachment. This isn't just tricky, because the attached barrel is hot, but it interrupts your rhythm. The Dyson Airwrap handles this on a single, multi-directional barrel, and once you've used that system it's hard not to notice the difference here.

The straightening nozzle is the most interesting new addition on paper — a U-shaped head that uses dual airflow channels to smooth and straighten without heating plates. It's more intuitive than the flyaway attachment it replaced, while producing a very similar finish, but I found it more fiddly than I'd hoped. You can only smooth small sections at a time and this takes a while, which feels like a step backwards for anyone who relied on the flyaway attachment for quick touch-ups and frizz control.

The diffuser does what it should. For naturally curly or wavy hair, it distributes airflow evenly without disturbing the curl pattern, and the results are noticeably better than using the fast dryer attachment on the same hair type. It's not doing anything the category hasn't seen before, but its absence from the AirStyle Pro was a gap, and it's good to have it here.

Finally, the brushes. The soft and hard smoothing brushes both perform well. The soft brush is gentle on fine or fragile hair, with the airflow automatically redirecting downward when attached to leave your hair feeling smooth. The hard brush handles coarser or more tangled hair well, and separates knots without pulling.

In testing, my favorite brush is the round volumizing brush. It's great for lifting roots and adding shape at the ends and it can even create loose curls.

In terms of noise levels, Dreame claims it produces 76dB, and in testing I recorded 79dB on the highest speed setting. That's slightly louder than the spec sheet suggests although not unreasonable for a tool of this type and it's quiet enough to hear music or have a conversation.

• Performance score: 4 out of 5

Should you buy the Dreame AirStyle Era?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Dreame AirStyle Era: also consider

How I tested the Dreame Airstyle Era

I used the AirStyle Era as my main styling tool for a week. During this time I used it to dry my hair, and tested all the different attachments, paying particular attention to the auto-wrap curlers.

I compared the styling results to what I managed to achieve with other similar stylers I've tested – including the Dyson Airwrap i.d. and Shark FlexStyle. I also assessed how easy the styler was to use and the effectiveness of its design and features.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed May 2026

Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender: one-minute review

American manufacturer Cuisinart is known for its range of high-quality kitchen appliances at affordable prices. The Power Blend Immersion Blender follows suit, offering versatility and convenience for less than $70 / £50 / AU$90.

his powerful four-in-one stick blender comes with several convenient accessories and attachments, including a food processor (with a mixing/chopping blade and reversible shredding/slicing disc), a chef’s whisk, a blending shaft, and a prep-and-store cup that makes prepping and storing foods like whipped cream and omelette mix a breeze. It’s even got an ergonomic handle design to make use and maneuvering more comfortable.

The results are impressive, with the Power Blend’s pressure-controlled speed giving you more control over its use and quickly whisking eggs, blending soups, and grating cheese.

However, it’s not without its flaws. This appliance may leave some food unprocessed or blended, and the blenders' pressure controls may not be suited to those with restricted hand or wrist movement (especially when turning it on). These may or may not be dealbreakers for you, depending on your individual needs, but they’re enough to hold the Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender back from a position among our top blender picks.

• £49.99 (about $70 / AU$90) direct from Cuisinart
• Available at third-party retailers, such as Amazon and Costco
• Regularly discounted to £42.99
• Not available in the U.S. or Australia

The Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender is priced at £49.99 (about $70 / AU$90), making it more affordable than competitors such as the Ninja Power Duo Immersion Blender ($79.99, roughly £60 / AU$110) and the Bosch ErgoMaster Series 6 (£99.99, or about $140 / AU$210), which is one of the best blenders on the market. Unfortunately, this product isn’t available in the US or Australia.

Considering the versatility and power of the Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender, it offers fantastic value for money. What’s more, third-party retailers like Amazon and Costco tend to offer a discount, bringing the price down to £42.99 – offering more bang for your buck.

• Value score: 5/5

Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender: specifications

Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender: design

• Comfortable ergonomic handle
• Dishwasher-friendly parts
• Pressure-controlled speed…
• …that can be tricky to use with the unlock button
• Motor can become warm

The Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender has a silver base that houses its motor and an ergonomic handle design that makes it comfortable to use and maneuver – especially if you have restricted mobility in your hand or wrist. Near the top of the handle is a variable, pressure-controlled speed button (with an LED light at the very top indicating the speed) and an unlock/on button.

At the bottom of the base is an attachment release button, with attachments able to be inserted and locked in with ease. This versatile immersion blender comes with three main attachments: a blending shaft, a 950ml food processor, and a chef’s whisk. In addition, the appliance comes with a canvas storage bag to keep all the bits in and a convenient 700ml prep-and-store cup and lid – though the cup lid did come unstuck a few times for us.

The blending shaft comes with a protective blade guard, allowing it to be used in glass, enamel, and non-stick vessels, while minimising splashing, which we found very effective. It also comes with a blade storage cover to allow the shaft to be safely stored. The full-sized chef’s whisk is attached to the base with a detachable gearbox and works a treat, especially when combined with the prep-and-store cup.

The food processor features a lid with a decent-sized feed chute (that could fit a large carrot vertically) and pusher, with a reversible slicing/shredding disc and mixing/chopping blade included and easily inserted into the work bowl.

To turn the appliance on, you need to press the unlock button while pressing the speed control button, before releasing the unlock, a bit like the mechanism seen on some lawnmowers. While this is a great child-safe feature, it took us a few tries to start the blender initially. Even when we’d worked out the system, holding both buttons simultaneously was uncomfortable, especially as you need to be mindful of the pressure you’re applying to the speed control.

While testing the chef whisk feature with some eggs in the prep-and-store cup. While trying to apply enough pressure to turn the blender on, we accidentally applied too much, resulting in our raw eggs splattering all over the kitchen.

This brings us nicely on to cleaning. Certain parts of the Power Blend are dishwasher safe: the food processor bowl, pusher, chopping/mixing blade, slicing/shredding disc, and prep-and-store cup and lid. However, the blending shaft and food processor lid need to be hand-washed, and the base should be wiped down. While the blending shaft and base are fairly easy to clean, the food processor lid is less so; it can't be immersed in water, so cleaning inside the feed chute is somewhat challenging.

Another issue we found with this stick blender was the heat the motor emitted when blending soup. We used the appliance for about two minutes, occasionally stopping and starting, and the handle was warm to the touch, suggesting the motor may be overheating. As such, we recommend not using this immersion blender continuously for too long or taking breaks if the handle begins to get quite warm.

• Design score: 4/5

Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender: performance

• Quickly blends chunky soups
• Convenient mini food processor attachment
• Impressive whisking
• Uneven cutting and some food left unprocessed

The first thing we tested was the Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender’s blending shaft attachment. After boiling a chunky 1L of homemade vegetable soup (with carrots, onions, cauliflower, potatoes, and a leek) until the veg was soft, we let it cool before blending on a medium-to-high pressure.

After around two minutes of blending, the soup was pretty smooth, but a few rebel chunks of cauliflower remained. As mentioned previously, at this point, the handle began to heat up, so we didn’t want to push it any more.

Next, we tested the chef’s whisk attachment. While the whisk seems quite flimsy, it’s pretty impressive. After cleaning up our prior disaster – and becoming more mindful of how sensitive the pressure controls are – we applied minimum pressure to our remaining eggs (mixed with milk and herbs) and had perfectly whisked eggs in a matter of seconds. It was so quick, we didn’t have time to whip out our phone and time it.

The food processor was equally impressive, though it isn’t without its flaws. We tested the mixing/chopping blade first, adding all the ingredients for a saag paste (including garlic, wilted spinach, veggie oil, spices, and coriander). It took around 30 seconds to make the paste, but it was loud: around 88 to 90 decibels. While most of the paste was mixed well, there were some less mixed parts at the bottom, under the blades, though it wasn’t enough to be a dealbreaker.

We also tested chopping a red onion with this blade, chopped into large chunks. It only took three or four short, one-second pulses of high-speed power to chop the onion. However, this was also loud – between 90 and 94 decibels – the cuts were largely uneven. We were impressed that the results weren’t overly wet, as we’ve seen when chopping onions with other powerful food processors.

Next, we tested the shredding/slicing disc, beginning with shredding (or grating) 50g of mature cheddar cut into rectangular blocks to fit the feed chute. While the cheese was grated in under 10 seconds, there was a lot of unshredded cheese on top of the disc.

We also experienced this using the slicing disc with a large carrot. While it took less than five seconds to slice the carrot, the slices were uneven, and there were some unsliced carrot remnants on top of the disc afterwards.

Overall, the Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender performs well, offering a lot of versatility and largely impressive results – but it does come with a few quirks that may irk some more than others.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender: also consider

If you're not sure whether this is the right blender for you, here are two other options to add to your shortlist.

How I tested the Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender

I tested the Cuisinart Power Blend Immersion Blender by preparing a wide variety of foods, including eggs, curry paste, and vegetable soup. I also used its food processor attachment to shred cheese, and chop various vegetables, and compared the results with those from a dedicated food processor. I cleaned the blender thoroughly after use, following the manufacturer's instructions. For more details, see how we test, review, and rate products at TechRadar.

First reviewed June 2026.

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: 2-minute review

The 8849 Tank Pad Ultra arrives as the company's most ambitious device to date. It builds on the original Tank Pad's projector concept and refines it considerably. Where the first Tank Pad offered a dim 100-lumen DLP unit running at sub-HD resolution, the Ultra steps up to 260 lumens and native 1920x1080 output. That is a 2.6x improvement in brightness in one generation, and it matters enormously in practice.

The hardware underneath is a MediaTek Dimensity 8200 paired with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of storage. This is not the fastest platform available in 2026, but it is more than sufficient for field work, document management, and media playback. Android 15 ships out of the box, which is a refreshing improvement over the Android 14 found on many rivals.

The camera cluster is genuinely impressive for a rugged device. A Sony IMX766 50MP main sensor sits alongside a 64MP night-vision camera using an OmniVision OV64B sensor backed by four infrared LEDs. The 32MP front camera uses a Sony IMX616. This is a meaningful step beyond the dual-camera arrangements on most competing rugged tablets.

Battery capacity is the headline stat: 23,400mAh. 8849 claims this is 11% larger than its predecessor. Charging speed is 66W, which is serviceable but falls well short of the 120W found on the recently launched Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra. At that battery capacity, 66W takes over two hours to fully recharge.

The body measures 268.3 x 170.3 x 24mm and weighs 1.345kg. It is a heavy device, though it sits below the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra's 1.6kg. The integrated handle doubles as a kickstand and is the most practical design element here for outdoor projection use.

IP68 and IP69K certification allows for both submersion and high-pressure water jets. That is the expected baseline for a device at this price and positioning. A 4-metre laser rangefinder and an 800-lumen camping light round out the utility toolkit.

In the annals of tablets that came with a projector, this is clearly one of the best rugged tablets so far.

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: price and availability

• How much does it cost? $690/£524/€605
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from 8849.

The Tank Pad Ultra is available in a range of territories and regions via the official 8849tech website here.

At $689.99, this rugged tablet is priced way below the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra, which commands closer to $799. It sits significantly above the original Tank Pad's sub-$400 positioning. The price increase reflects genuine hardware improvements rather than marketing inflation, particularly in the projector and camera departments.

UK pricing is £525.84 and in the EU its €604.79. There is a summer sale for US, EU, UK and CA customers with a further $20 reduction until the 12th of June.

Currently, this machine isn't on Amazon.com, but given that everything else 8849-branded is, it's probably only a matter of time before it is. The hardware is also sold by AliExpress, but it was more expensive than buying it directly for whatever reason.

Given the specification, even if the TANK Pad Ultra isn't exactly cheap, it offers the best value for a tablet with a projector.

• Value score: 4/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: Specs

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: design

• Heavy duty
• Kickstand issues
• Idiosyncratic layout

On paper, the Tank Pad Ultra follows the established formula for rugged tablets. The body is thick and reinforced, with corner bumpers and rubberised edges. At 24mm deep it is not a device that slips into a jacket pocket unless you’re a friendly giant. The intention is clear: this is business equipment, not a lifestyle accessory.

The integrated handle on the rear is a practical touch. It locks flat against the body for carrying and swings out to serve as a kickstand for projection or media use. For a device this heavy, the handle is not an option, it is a functional necessity.

Which is why I was annoyed when I couldn’t get the one that came with my tablet to fit correctly. The stand is metal and is pinned to the TANK Pad Ultra by a single large bolt that has a straight slot that a ‘8849 coin’ is provided to tighten. On mine, it would never tighten enough to fully engage the stand, making it loose.

Initially, I thought this was because of an excessive amount of blue thread-locker on the bolt, but after I’d scraped that off and realised it didn’t fix the problem, I concluded the thread in the tablet was poorly manufactured.

I didn’t have the thread cutter to fix this handy, so I filed the bolt down a little to make it extend less, and it fitted much better. Not sure why 8849 quality assurance didn’t notice this, but they need to make sure that they do in the future.

One oddity about the stand is that it has a square profile that engages, allowing for four possible ways to attach it. Except that only one direction works properly, because the others interfere either with the camera cluster or the camping light. Perhaps a polariser is needed to help users put it on correctly?

The top edge houses the volume keys and two PPT buttons in roughly the middle of that side, with the projector mounted to the left. The power button with an integrated fingerprint scanner is on the left side, where I kept accidentally hitting it while trying to take photos.

I tried to set that button up with fingerprint unlock and failed miserably. When you enter the fingerprint training mode, it tells you to firmly press the button, and when you do, the tablet turns off. Thankfully, the face unlock works much better, so it’s hardly a deal breaker.

The SIM tray is on the lower edge, and the USB-C and audio jack ports are under a rubber plug on the right side.

What’s missing here is any pogo pin pads or extra USB port that could be used to connect the tablet to a vehicle cradle. Which, when you have a tablet that’s 1345 g, you would reasonably expect to exist. There isn’t one, which explains why the designers never considered supporting that functionality.

Overall, the layout of this tablet isn’t the best I’ve seen, but most people could probably adapt to it.

Design score: 3.5/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: hardware

• MediaTek Dimensity 8200 5G
• 260 Lumen Projector
• 23,400 mAh battery

The Dimensity 8200 is a solid midrange to upper-midrange platform. Built on a 4nm process, it delivers capable performance for multitasking, Android gaming, and field software use. It is not the Dimensity 9000 series or a Snapdragon 8 Gen equivalent, and buyers with heavy sustained workloads should note the distinction. For the use cases this device targets, it is more than adequate and a step up from the Dimensity 7400X that Ulefone used in its most recent design.

For no logical reason, rugged tablet makers seem to think decent processors or camera sensors aren’t required, when they’re as critical as they are in phones.

Sixteen gigabytes of LPDDR5 RAM is generous. Combined with the expandable storage via microSD, the Tank Pad Ultra avoids the storage cliff that afflicts cheaper rugged tablets.

But it's the DLP projector that is the engineering centrepiece in this design. At 260 lumens, it is 2.6 times brighter than the original Tank Pad's 100-lumen unit. Auto-focus handles throw distances between 0.5 and 4 metres. A micro-ranging laser assists the focus calibration for precise image sharpness. The native output resolution of 1920x1080 is a substantial step up from the 854x480 of the original device, and better than the 960 x 540 projector on the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra.

My only issue with the projector is that 8849 didn’t implement a low-throw solution where the tablet could be flat on a desk and still project an image on the wall. With this design, you need to use the stand or a pile of books to elevate the tablet to a height where the projection will work.

The 23,400mAh battery is enormous, even if some rugged tablets have even more. Runtime estimates in the field will depend heavily on whether the projector, camping light, and 5G radio are active simultaneously. With the projector running, expect significantly reduced endurance versus a typical standby or browsing scenario.

One last special feature of this tablet is the GPS solution. It uses dual frequencies L1+L5 GPS for more precise positioning, in theory. I've not seen this in a rugged tablet before, and it could be genuinely useful for those flying drones or doing surveys. In my testing, it did seem marginally more accurate than the GPS in a typical phone.

• Hardware score: 4.5/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: cameras

• 50MP, 64MP on the rear
• 32MP on the front
• Three cameras in total

The 8849 Tank Pad Ultra has three cameras:

Rear cameras: 50MP Sony IMX766 , 64MP Omnivision OV64B1B Sensor (Night Vision)
Front camera: 32MP Sony IMX616

The camera configuration is one of the Tank Pad Ultra's stronger arguments over rivals. Most rugged tablets treat imaging as an afterthought. 8849 has invested meaningfully here.

The main camera uses a Sony IMX766 sensor at 50MP. This is the same sensor found in numerous premium Android smartphones, so expectations for image quality are reasonably well established. The large 1/1.56-inch format and all-pixel autofocus should deliver solid results in good light.

The night-vision camera is the headline differentiator. The 64MP OmniVision OV64B sensor is backed by four infrared LEDs and a dual-tone LED flash capable of 1.5A output. 8849 claims usable images in near-total darkness. This is genuinely useful for inspection work, security documentation, or field work in unlit environments.

The 32MP Sony IMX616 front camera is well specified for video calls and document scanning. For remote workers filing from a site office, the quality here matters more than it might for a consumer device.

Looking through my examples, the rear camera on this tablet produces some excellent results. The colour is accurate and not oversaturated, the edges of objects are crisp, and even the sky avoids being blown out. Using editing tools, it’s easy to get extra detail out of shadows and crop without making images appear blocky.

And, the 64MP Omnivision OV64B1B is one of the best choices for a night vision sensor, currently.

There are limited special photo modes, but you do get timelapse, super resolution, and QR codes, and there is a PRO mode. Video capture has scene modes and a full spectrum of resolutions from VGA up to 4K.

The only way this could get much better is if the optics had a proper zoom and not a digital one, but relatively few phones or tablets have that feature.

The only blot here is that 8849 wouldn’t pay for Widevine L1 encryption, so the best resolution you can stream from major providers is 480P, even if the screen would handle 1080p easily. Unfortunate, but a predictable limitation.

That point aside, this is one of the best camera solutions on a rugged tablet I’ve encountered, and for those doing surveys or wanting to capture property or vehicle damage, the provided tools are more than most will realistically need.

8849 TANK Pad Ultra Camera samples

• Camera score: 4/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: Performance

• Modern SoC
• Good battery life

The Dimensity 8200 platform performs comfortably in daily use. Android 15 runs without the stuttering or lag that can affect less powerful rugged tablets. Multitasking between field apps, maps, and documents is smooth.

Gaming performance is functional rather than flagship. The Mali-G610 MC6 GPU handles lighter titles well. Sustained gaming or graphics-intensive applications will cause throttling, as is typical for this class of chip under prolonged load.

The projector introduces a notable power draw. Thermal management under combined projector and processing load is an area worth monitoring in extended field scenarios. The device body will warm noticeably during sustained projection.

If we compare the 8200 with the 7400X that the Ulefone tablet uses, this SoC is roughly 25% quicker across the board, and better than that in graphics performance.

However, with great performance comes even greater power consumption. And, while the battery life of the machine looks good at 30 hours and 43 minutes, there is a caveat that the Ulefone device still had 27% of its battery unused when the benchmark aborted. Where the 8849 machine only had 5%, therefore the win should go to the Ulefone.

That said, this is more than enough capacity for most uses, and if curated, a running time of more than five days is easily within reach.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

8849 TANK Pad Ultra: Final verdict

For field engineers, survey teams, and outdoor professionals who project content regularly and need the clearest image possible from an integrated device, the Tank Pad Ultra earns a confident recommendation. For everyone else, the 8849 Tank Pad Ultra is the current high-water mark for built-in pico projection in a rugged tablet.

The leap from 100 lumens and 854x480 to 260 lumens and native 1080p is a generational step, not an incremental one. Add a Sony sensor main camera, a 64MP night-vision unit, a laser rangefinder, and a 23,400mAh battery at $690, and the value proposition is difficult to argue against.

The shortcomings are real but predictable. Sixty-six watts of charging is slow for a battery this large, even if it can manage a complete cycle in two hours. The device is heavy and thick by any standard other than the rugged-tablet category it occupies. The Dimensity 8200, while capable, is not a premium 2026 platform, even if it’s the exception to the rule that rugged tablets are typically underpowered.

Against the Ulefone Armor Pad 5 Ultra, its most direct rival, the Tank Pad Ultra wins on projector brightness, projector resolution, SoC power, weight and price. It loses on charging speed and the dual-floodlight provision. Which device wins depends entirely on which compromises suit your workflow, and how tight your budget is.

Should I buy a 8849 TANK Pad Ultra?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

For more ruggedized devices, we've reviewed the best rugged phones, the best rugged laptops and the best rugged hard drives

Khadas Tea Pro review: two minute review

The Khadas Tea Pro headphone amplifier is a slim and lightweight external DAC/amp that works across most devices — iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux — and is particularly good for smartphones with MagSafe or magnetic cases.

The Tea Pro connects via USB-C and delivers both 4.4mm balanced and 3.5mm stereo outputs, with support for up to 768kHz PCM and DSD512 audio. It also has Bluetooth 5.4 input with aptX HD, aptX Adaptive and LDAC as well as the obligatory SBC and AAC. The integrated battery promises up to 8 hours of CD quality listening over USB-C and 11 hours using AAC on Bluetooth.

Although there's Bluetooth on board at up to 96kHz PCM, for best results you want to use this device as a wired DAC/amp. The Bluetooth performance isn't bad by any means, but the Tea Pro delivers higher resolution audio via USB-C.

FiiO TT13 review: price and release date

• Released August 2025
• Priced $199 / £199 (about AU$375)

The Khadas Tea Pro was launched in August 2025 with a recommended price tag of $199 / £199 (about AU$375) and is available with a choice of two cables: USB-C to USB-C, or Lightning to USB-C for older iPhones and iPads. Although it's twice the price of the original and well-received Tea it's a very significant upgrade with significantly higher sound quality, better Bluetooth, an integrated display and more headphone options.

Khadas Tea Pro review: features

• MagSafe attachment
• Bluetooth or USB-C
• Excellent hi-res support

Although it's compatible with almost anything with a USB port, the Tea Pro is clearly intended for MagSafe iPhones (iPhone 12 onwards) or phones in magnetic cases. That enables it to clip securely to the back of your phone, and it's a strong connection both directly and through a compatible phone case.

There are two headphone jacks here: a 4.4mm balanced output delivering up to 180mW at 16.5 Ω, and a 3.5mm jack putting out up to 100mW at 16.5 Ω. There's also a built-in microphone for voice calling. If you have headphones with their own mic connected to the 3.5mm jack, the headphone mic will take precedence over the Tea Pro's mic.

The ESS ES9039Q2M DAC supports sample rates of up to 768kHz PCM and DSD512, with a signal to noise ratio of up to 122dB. A Qualcomm QCC5181 takes care of the wireless features, with support for SBC / AAC / aptX / aptX Adaptive / aptX HD / LDAC over Bluetooth 5.4.

There are seven EQ presets for different musical genres, and you can also set your own EQ via the 10-band custom EQ. That delivers adjustable gain from -12dB to +12dB.

The internal battery is 2,100mAh and promises up to 11 hours of listening depending on the audio format you're using: 11 hours with AAC over Bluetooth and 8 hours of CD audio over USB-C. The Tea Pro can also recharge from your phone when its battery is low if you enable Device Charging in its settings menu.

Features score: 5 / 5

Khadas Tea Pro review: sound quality

• Good on Bluetooth, better on USB
• Wide soundstage and good clarity
• EQ presets best ignored

The Tea Pro delivers a neutral sound, and with high gain on it delivered an impressively propulsive performance on my open-back BeyerDynamics; I'd have liked to drive them a little louder but there's more than enough power for sensible listening levels. Bass is generally clear and well defined and highs are airy without being harsh, and things only started to get uncomfortable when both iPhone and Tea Pro were at their highest volume levels on very bright or bassy tracks.

As fun as the Tea Pro is over Bluetooth, it's better still with a USB-C connection. It's louder, more defined and more spacious, with the likes of Robyn's Dopamine delivering more punch than over wireless. There's a nice wide soundstage, with tracks like U2's remastered Zoo Station sounding suitably widescreen and Talk Talk's New Grass delivering impressive airiness.

The Tea Pro is very good for a portable DAC/amp, although I did notice a difference on tracks such as Little Simz and Obongjayar's Point and Kill that showed up the relative lack of headroom compared to a desktop device: on my desktop DAC/amp the serpentine bass is noticeably clearer and more distinct, the whole track feeling much more airy, whereas on the Tea Pro the low end was less defined and the track a little boxy. I found that the on-board EQ presets made that more apparent, dulling the sound. I much preferred leaving the EQ off altogether on my better headphones, although I did need to cut the highs for IEM listening to reduce the harshness they're prone to.

Sound quality: 4 / 5

Khadas Tea Pro review: design

• Very Apple-like appearance
• Tiny screen in a big bit of glass
• A little fiddly when magnetically mounted

The Tea Pro is a good-looking thing. It looks decidedly Apple-esque, with a very slim 7.85mm machined aluminium casing, curved edges and two large black glass sections: the status display area, which looks big but contains a fairly small 0.95-inch AMOLED screen, and a smaller lozenge displaying the Tea logo. That lower lozenge is functional as well as decorative, as it ensures your phone won't wobble when you put it on a desktop or other flat surface.

Buttons are kept to a minimum. On the left there's a power button and a menu/confirm button, and on the right there are volume up and down controls. The slim size of the Tea Pro makes them a little fiddly to access when the device is attached to your phone, but not impossibly so. That's not an issue if you're connecting with the supplied 10cm USB-C cable.

Inevitably adding a magnetic item to your phone adds weight, but the Tea Pro isn't too bad: at 96g it's lighter than Apple's own similarly sized MagSafe power bank.

Design score: 4 / 5

Khadas Tea Pro review: ease of use and setup

• Simple pairing/connection
• Simple menu system
• Tiny text in display

Pairing over Bluetooth is effortless and the menu system is simple: it gives you access to filters, EQ, high and low gain options, device settings, headphone options and so on. The text is exceptionally small, however, so it's handy that you can also access settings via the companion iOS/Android app.

Usability and setup score: 4 / 5

Khadas Tea Pro review: value

• Nice sound and premium appearance
• Pricey for a portable DAC
• Some rivals are more powerful and a lot less expensive

It's clear that some of the price tag here is for that aluminum body and extensive use of glass: rival headphone DAC/amps cost a lot less but look and feel a lot less special. If you're happy to pay a premium for solid build and stylish looks then this is a good choice with excellent iPhone attachment and good compatibility with other devices too.

Value score: 3 / 5

Should I buy the Khadas Tea Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Khadas Tea Pro review: Also consider

The cassette-themed FiiO KA15 is cute, fun, sounds good and comes in at half the price of the Tea Pro, delivering both 3.5mm and balanced 4.4mm outputs with a desktop mode that puts out much higher power than the Tea Pro can deliver. The iFi Go Link 2 is cheaper still and particularly good if all you want to do is add wired headphones to a USB-C device such as a phone or tablet.

How I tested the Khadas Tea Pro

• Wired open and closed back headphones and IEMs
• Lossy streaming, lossless FLAC and Logic Pro projects

I spent a week listening to the Tea Pro via my usual headphones: BeyerDynamic DT990 Pro open-back and DT770 closed-back headphones at home and work, and SoundMagic E11C IEMs outdoors and on public transport. I listened to lossy and lossless streaming and uncompressed FLACs on my iPhone 16 Pro.

• First reviewed: May 2026
• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

GameSir Pocket Taco: review

The GameSir Pocket Taco is a novel mobile controller that clips to the bottom of your phone. It’s honestly unique enough that if you’ve seen it once, you’ll definitely remember it. With it, GameSir is attempting to cater to a niche audience of retro gamers that love old 4:3 titles but hate the pillar-boxing they cause on modern screens. Sadly, this is also its biggest weakness — if it fails to 100% nail this use case, it doesn’t have the broad appeal that will encourage other gamers to grab it instead.

When it comes to its design, I’ll admit I’m totally picking up what the GameSir Pocket Taco is throwing down. The Game-Boy-aping styling — upgraded with additional X and Y buttons for later generation games — is perfectly pitched to milk my nostalgia gland. And the clickiness of the buttons and D-pad certainly feels close enough in my mind’s eye to those halcyon days bopping ants on the head in Super Mario Land 2 almost 35 years ago.

Okay, I get that clamshell form factor is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it seems like a neat idea that’s not been covered by any of the best mobile controllers yet, allowing you to play retro games in the 4:3 format they were designed in.

Clasping your phone with just enough force that it won’t slide out, I was happy trusting my premium phone to this little clip, while the gap at the bottom allows you to charge your phone while gaming, which is a nice touch. On paper, it seems like a fun way to play your old retro titles in a format that feels more familiar — a vertical 4:3 handheld.

Unfortunately, the issue is that things in the real world often don’t work out how they do on paper. And using the Pocket Taco, I was quickly forced to confront the gap between GameSir’s ambitions for the device and the reality of what it was able to achieve.

First off, the overall user experience of the Pocket Taco is a hollow shell that quickly disintegrates when you bite into it. Pairing the device gives me flashbacks to the bad old days of Bluetooth connectivity. Adding new connections became a painful process of triggering pairing mode over and over and wondering why the device wouldn’t appear in my potential connections.

This isn’t helped by the fact that it has four different pairing modes for different operating systems — I assume this is to make switching between multiple devices quicker, but in reality makes it more of a chore than a single Bluetooth connection that pairs and unpairs smoothly.

Using the GameSir app is also a mixed experience. Even when I finally paired the Pocket Taco with my iPhone 16 Pro, the app often would claim that it was connected with a nondescript third-party controller, blocking me from accessing the Pocket Taco’s unique functions. Once I’d finally gotten it to recognize the device in the app, I was allowed to test the controls and set the screen ratio, allowing me to resize the screen to take into account the section covered by the device.

Except I have no idea what the purpose of this is. It doesn’t impact anything outside of the app — your phone screen’s aspect ratio is set at the device level, meaning the second you navigate away from this app, the screen ratio resets to its default and is once again half covered by the controller.

There’s simply no way to get native games on iOS and Android to crop to the top half of the screen or even, with many of them, play in portrait mode, which really limits the controller's utility. You can still play native games using the Pocket Taco undocked, but for a lot of people, the appeal is going to be turning their phone into an all-in-one gaming device.

Now I know some people are going to roll their eyes and say that this controller is obviously intended for emulation, not running native games. Even setting aside the ethics of emulation — we're not advocates here at TechRadar, and are all for owning your own games, and I’m not going to endorse you doing anything that could land you in legal trouble — the Pocket Taco itself seems unsure of this fact.

In the iOS app, pressing the home button takes you straight to the Games app, while on Android, you can directly link games you’ve downloaded from the Play Store to the app. So there’s clearly a bit of an identity crisis going on here.

And the added wrinkle here is that many emulators aren’t able to change the aspect ratio and positioning of the screen. While I didn’t open or play any ROMs for this review, I did try out a couple of emulator apps to test the Pocket Taco’s compatibility with them. Using one of the most popular options on Android, I found it was impossible to reposition the screen to fit the remaining portion of the display.

Fortunately, I had better luck with one iOS option, using a controller skin to nudge the display into the right position, even if it left a pretty ugly black bar between the controller and the screen. Even if it is sometimes possible, it’s not exactly elegant.

Honestly, by the time I’d been through this process of getting the Pocket Taco working, my enthusiasm had almost entirely ebbed away. And that’s a shame because, underneath it all, there’s a decent controller struggling to get out.

When I finally caved and started using the Pocket Taco undocked, it plays like a dream. I booted up the iOS version of Secret of Mana and found the Pocket Taco was pleasantly tactile to use. It’s also pretty responsive — despite a few claims I’ve read online complaining about lag, I couldn’t perceive any noticeable delay between tapping a button and Randi spanking a rabbite or mushboom with his sword. But the issue is that propping your phone up and using a separate controller is just a bit clunky — many better mobile controllers like the Backbone One 2nd Gen exist that allow you to play native games docked.

I get the feeling that the Pocket Taco dwells in a state of existential crisis, unsure exactly who it is for. Because it’s an awkward fit for native gaming, forcing you to use it undocked. And for those who are looking for a way to emulate games in 4:3, there are plenty of pocket-sized handhelds that already cater to this market without the awkward screen resizing issues you’ll encounter here. Fundamentally, that means its niche is largely going to comprise those wooed by its nostalgia-drenched concept or emulator enthusiasts that can’t quite stretch to a standalone console. Others should look elsewhere.

GameSir Pocket Taco review: price and availability

• First shipped on March 15
• List price of $34.99 / £34.99 / AU$59
• Only one colorway

Having started shipping on March 15, the GameSir Pocket Taco is available now. You can pick it up for a list price of $34.99 / £34.99 / AU$59, which is seriously cheap, even compared to other mobile controllers. By comparison, our pick for best budget mobile, the GameSir X2s Type-C, costs $44.99 / £39.99 / AU$59, so this is a very affordable device.

While some mobile controllers will give you different colorways that mimic various consoles across the ages, the Pocket Taco only comes in this GameBoy-style color palette. That’s pure catnip for someone of my age but if you're more of an OG PlayStation or GameCube fanboi, you’re not going to be catered to here.

Should I buy the GameSir Pocket Taco?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

GameSir Pocket Taco review: also consider

How I tested the GameSir Pocket Taco

• Tested over the course of a week
• Tried it out on a variety of handsets, operating systems, and games
• I play way too many retro handheld games

I used the GameSir Pocket Taco over the course of a week. Not only did I download the GameSir app and try out all of its features and settings, but I also paired the device with both an iOS and an Android-powered handset: the iPhone 16 Pro and the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro.

When it comes to software, I used the GameSir Pocket Taco with multiple native games on iOS and Android. I also set it up with several highly rated emulators to see how compatible they were with the Pocket Taco’s screen coverage.

In terms of my own experience, I’ve been testing and reviewing gadgets for many years. I’m an avid handheld gamer, regularly playing on my Steam Deck, Switch 2, and iPhone 16 Pro. I’m also a keen retro gamer — I’ve completed games like Chrono Trigger and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap more times than is strictly good for me.

• First reviewed: May 2026
• Read more about how we test

One-minute review

The SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud positions itself as the “world's first true dual-mode cloud controller”. It starts out as a generic-looking Bluetooth gamepad before doing its best Autobot impersonation and extending out to become a mobile grip that connects to your phone via USB-C, too.

It’s a clever idea and it’s backed up by an impressive spec sheet that ticks all the usual premium controller boxes. Hall Effect thumbsticks and triggers, mechanical face buttons, programmable rear buttons, and compatibility with Mac, PC, iOS, and Android.

That all sounds great, but after a week of using the Nimbus Cloud, it sadly lived up to its name. Cumulonimbus clouds are the type that bring heavy rain and thunderstorms, and my parade has been well and truly rained on.

When it works, it’s not a bad controller and falls neatly in line with the likes of the stock Xbox Wireless Controller. However, for a $149.99 / £129.99 / AU$359.99 controller, the Nimbus Cloud simply has too many flaws that spoil the day-to-day experience. There’s a list of buts coming here and it doesn’t make for particularly pleasant reading.

Build quality is fine, but it’s generic rather than carrying any kind of premium vibe. The triggers use Hall Effect sensors, which is good, but they feel mushy and throttle control in racing games proved a frustrating experience. The mechanical face buttons are crisp, but over both Bluetooth and USB-C I encountered missed inputs when pressing them more than once.

My iPhone 17 Pro fit, but it was far from a secure hold and it required the removal of the rubber inserts, leaving the phone resting and rubbing against bare plastic. SteelSeries lists Mac as a compatible platform, but my testing on a MacBook Air was a mess, with inverted sticks, wrongly mapped inputs, and Steam not playing nice either.

If this were a cheaper option or first attempt from a challenger brand then I’d find it easier to focus on the decent core elements and look past the finer details. However, at $149.99, you're paying over the odds for an under par experience, regardless of which mode you’re running it in.

SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud: Price and availability

• Costs $149.99 / £129.00 / AU$359.99
• Available from SteelSeries and some third-party retailers
• Released September 2025

The SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud is a relatively new addition to the range, launching in the back half of 2025 at $149.99 / £129.99 / AU$359.99. That’s top-end territory for a mobile grip or PC controller on its own, though it’s certainly more palatable for a device aiming to be both in one.

For comparison, the Backbone Pro mobile grip and Razer Wolverine V3 Pro PC controller will both set you back around the same on their own. But you could grab both the GameSir G8+ for mobile and 8BitDo Ultimate 2 for PC and have a little budget to spare.

It is worth shopping around, too, because the price seems to vary dramatically. Apple lists the Nimbus Cloud £20 higher in the UK than SteelSeries on its own website. And I’ve seen the price drop as low as £64 while writing this piece.

SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud: Specs

SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud: Design and features

• Cleverly extends from a compact PC controller to a full-width mobile controller grip
• Broad compatibility across platforms
• Nicely sized and positioned rear buttons

Pick up the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud in its collapsed form, and, apart from a curious split down the middle, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a fairly standard Bluetooth gamepad. It has the familiar Xbox-style stick layout, ABXY face buttons, bumpers, triggers, a d-pad, and view/menu buttons.

There's no center button like an Xbox guide button, though there is a Home button that directs you to your device's home screen or, on iOS, Apple's Games app. It’s all pretty standard stuff.

Build quality is alright rather than impressive. I wasn’t blown away by how it felt in my hands but equally there wasn’t any area of particular concern. It's surprisingly light at just over 250g, which is welcome for a mobile controller with a battery, but that lightness comes with a hollow feeling that doesn't scream premium.

Nothing rattles or creaks, but it's no better than a stock Xbox controller and lacks the little premium touches like rubberized or textured grips that you’d expect for $150. SteelSeries says the battery is good for 20 hours of play over Bluetooth and that seems about right based on my testing. There’s passthrough USB-C charging too, but no 3.5mm audio output.

The magic trick is when it engages Transformer mode (an unofficial name I’m giving it). Pull the two halves apart and the Nimbus Cloud unfurls into a telescopic mobile grip, revealing a USB-C connector on the upper right side that plugs directly into your phone.

The mechanism involves multiple overlapping sections that extend, and credit where it's due, it's a very clever bit of mechanical design. It just seems to keep going with more and more phone deck appearing from nowhere. It’s satisfying in a fidget-toy sort of way and while using it in PC controller mode I caught myself idly expanding and collapsing it a few times during cutscenes.

Phone compatibility is a mixed bag and unlike other dedicated mobile grips it’s not simply a matter of case on vs case off. I tested with both an iPhone 17 Pro and a POCO X5 Pro. The POCO has a slim, nearly flat profile and fit physically with the stock set of rubber inserts.

By design your phone is seated in the upper half of the grip rather than centrally, though, which leaves it feeling somewhat exposed and prone to knocks. The iPhone 17 Pro was almost a non-starter as with either size of the included rubber inserts the camera bump was too thick to fit neatly.

Even after removing the inserts entirely, which leaves the phone resting against bare hard plastic, it didn't fit in a way I’d consider usable long term. Beyond worries about it getting scratched to bits, I was concerned about the amount of stress going through the USB-C connector. There's noticeable movement and wobble with the phone inserted, it never feels square, and one bad bump feels like it could snap the connector off inside your phone's port.

The rear of the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud has two programmable buttons that sit in a natural resting position for your middle fingers. I’d call them a hybrid between a paddle and a button and it’s a design that works well ergonomically, requiring just the right amount of force to activate while avoiding accidental clicks.

However, the lack of any official companion app means you can only bind or remap these through iOS's built-in Game Controller settings. On Android, I couldn't remap them at all.

For a controller at this price from a brand with the resources of SteelSeries, the absence of a dedicated app for customization is difficult to understand. Competitors like Razer, GameSir, and Backbone all offer robust software companions, and some of those are half the price.

SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud: Performance

• Hall Effect sticks and mechanical face buttons feel great
• Triggers are mushy and lack control
• Connectivity and compatibility is a real mixed bag across platforms

Whether in controller or grip trim, the Hall Effect thumbsticks are the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud's strongest performing feature.

They're quite firm with a relatively fast spring-back and slightly shorter travel than some competitors I've tested. That means they're precise enough for shooters and responsive enough for general gaming, though the smaller range of movement might take some adjustment. Unlike some competitors, there’s no option to swap or adjust the sticks and SteelSeries has played it reasonably safe with a shortish stick height and traditional caps.

The triggers also use Hall Effect sensors, but they’re muddy and I didn’t feel like they consistently recreated their physical movement in game. It's hard to explain, but where good thumbsticks let you feel dialed in when playing racing games like Forza Horizon 6, on the Nimbus Cloud I felt disconnected when trying to modulate the throttle. This was the same whether I was playing locally on my PC or via cloud gaming on mobile, so wasn’t a Bluetooth latency issue.

The mechanical face buttons are super clicky, tactile, and satisfying to press, as is the d-pad. They’re responsive for general gameplay; however, I noticed the Nimbus Cloud would occasionally miss inputs in situations where I was pressing the same button repeatedly.

This originally cropped up when spam jumping waiting for the Battle Bus in a Fortnite lobby and I was able to confirm it with dedicated testing after getting eliminated. Interestingly, this didn't seem to be an issue when pressing a combination of buttons so appears to be a debounce problem. The face buttons are pretty quiet but the same can’t be said for the bumpers. It’s nice to see these use mechanical switches, but unlike the face buttons they’re loud and almost sound like a cheap old-fashioned mouse.

When stretched out in mobile grip mode the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud performs well. On both iOS and Android it was immediately recognized, though the controller itself is a little shy in confirming this for you. The four battery LEDs do briefly light up initially, but I’d like a persistent indicator like you find on rivals.

Both Fortnite and Call of Duty Mobile recognized the controller on launch with no extra config or mapping needed, as did Xbox Cloud Gaming. It all worked nicely and naturally out of the box, which is just as well, because without an app you’d be completely stuck otherwise. I mentioned it before, but the Nimbus Cloud having no companion app feels like a real misstep. Rivals like the GameSir G8+ allow for deep customization like dead zone adjustment and hair trigger modes, both of which are notably absent here on a controller that costs nearly twice as much.

Where things fell apart completely in my testing was when I tried to use the Nimbus Cloud with macOS. SteelSeries lists Mac as a compatible platform, but in my experience it was borderline unusable. It happily connected via Bluetooth without any fuss, but that’s where the joy ended.

In Forza Horizon 6 via Xbox Cloud Gaming I was greeted by the left stick input being inverted and triggers that were mapped to start and select. It turned out the bumpers were acting as triggers instead, and while I attempted to remap through macOS system settings, it didn't seem to be respected in game. This wasn’t a Forza problem; either, Stardew Valley didn’t even recognize it at all. Steam fared just as badly, albeit in a different way. There it detected the Nimbus Cloud as two separate controllers simultaneously, neither of which worked correctly.

The good news is that I was actually quite impressed with how the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud performed over Bluetooth (as long as you’re not a Mac main, of course). My iPad Pro immediately recognized the Nimbus Cloud without issue and playing Fortnite natively could easily have been mistaken for a scaled-down console experience.

Connected to my Windows gaming PC I happily spent a couple of hours in Roadcraft and at this slower pace the Nimbus Cloud kept up nicely. I did have to go through the full Steam controller setup procedure, however, something I’ve not needed to do with controllers in the past. Cloud gaming was fine on Windows too, up was up, down was down, and triggers were triggers.

Should I buy the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

After a more consistent experience? Here are two capable alternatives.

How I tested the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud

• I spent a few days testing across devices, including an iPhone 17 Pro and POCO X5 Pro, an iPad Pro, a MacBook Air, and a gaming PC
• I played Fortnite and Call of Duty Mobile natively on mobile and iPad, Roadcraft on desktop, and Forza Horizon 6 via Xbox Cloud Gaming.
• I tested it in both collapsed and expanded modes

Over the course of a week I tested the SteelSeries Nimbus Cloud across multiple platforms and game genres. Mobile testing was split between an iPhone 17 Pro and a POCO X5 Pro, covering both iOS and Android in the extended USB-C mode. I played a mix of native mobile games and cloud-streamed titles via Xbox GamePass.

For Bluetooth testing, I paired the Nimbus Cloud with a Windows PC and a MacBook Air, looking at games on Steam and cloud gaming on both platforms. When I noticed potential missed button inputs during regular gameplay, I used a dedicated button testing app to verify.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed July 2025

Samsung Galaxy Book6 EE: 30-second review

Samsung's Galaxy Book series has always aimed at the sensible middle of the market. Not the cheapest, not the most powerful, but reliably built and tightly integrated with the rest of the Galaxy ecosystem. The Book6 Enterprise Edition continues that tradition, but with a genuinely interesting processor under the hood and an Enterprise deployment capability.

Intel's Core Ultra Series 3, codename Panther Lake, marks the company's first laptop silicon on the 18A process node. In the Pro and Ultra models debuting this cycle, the architecture shows its teeth. The standard Book6 EE is more restrained, using the Core Ultra 5 325 or Ultra 7 355 variants with Intel's integrated Xe3 graphics rather than the Arc B390 iGPU found in the Pro. That distinction matters, and we will come back to it.

What the standard Book6 EE does well is the things most buyers actually need. The battery life is genuinely long, the build quality feels solid for the price, and the symmetrical redesign is a clear improvement over earlier generations. The new 16:10 IPS WUXGA display gives more vertical real estate than before, even if it cannot match the OLED richness of the Pro tier.

The elephant in this room is the Pro model. At launch, the Galaxy Book6 Pro 16-inch is not dramatically more than the top Book6 EE configuration, and it brings a 3K AMOLED display, stronger integrated graphics and better thermal headroom. For buyers who plan to push the machine hard, that price gap becomes hard to ignore.

But the standard Book6 EE is not trying to be the Pro. It is aimed at everyday professionals and Galaxy ecosystem users who want a well-rounded machine at a sensible entry price. On those terms, it largely succeeds.

However, some of the Samsung-imposed limitations, like the USB ports, stop this from entering our hallowed best business laptops hall of fame.

Samsung Galaxy Book6 EE: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From £1405
• When is it out? Available now in UK
• Where can you get it? Direct from Samsung B2B

The Galaxy Book6 was announced at CES in January 2026 and went on sale in the UK from 11 March 2026. European pre-orders opened from 25 February.

It's available in US via Samsung, but also on Amazon, where prices start from $1280.

UK pricing starts at £1405 for the 14-inch model with a Core Ultra 5 processor, 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. A 16-inch Core Ultra 7 model with 32GB and 512GB of storage sits at the top of the standard Book6 range at £1,809.

One with the specifications of the review hardware that includes the Core 7 Ultra 355 CPU, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage isn’t yet listed, but it’s likely to be north of £2000 based on these choices.

What also makes buying one directly from Samsung or one of its partner retailers so confusing is that it's still selling the Book5 and Book4 models, and some of these seem to be much better value for money, especially at the higher end.

As there are so many SKUs, here is a grid of what is available purely on the Book6 EE products in the UK.

For those wondering, these machines are roughly about £150 more than the equivalent retail models, though they do come with some differences that I’ll mention later.

The immediate competition in the UK includes the Acer Swift 16 AI, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5, and the ASUS Vivobook S 16. None of those offers the same Galaxy AI integration, though most come with an OLED option at comparable prices. The standard Book6 does not offer this screen technology, and the Enterprise Edition does not either unless you have a Pro model.

In terms of price, the extra cost over the retail Book6 seems plausible given what these machines might save a company in admin, but the baseline Book6 on which they’ve been built is expensive compared with the Book5 that came before it.

For those with money to burn, the Book6 Ultra Enterprise Edition 16-inch comes with a Core Ultra 7 processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and an Nvidia 5060 mobile GPU for an astonishing £3,619.

• Value: 3 / 5

Samsung Galaxy Book6 EE: Specs

Samsung Galaxy Book6 EE: Design

• Symmetrical layout
• Aluminium chassis in dark grey
• Lots of ports
• 1.8 kg, heavier than the Pro at 1.56 kg

Samsung gave the entire Book6 range a visible redesign. The most immediately striking change is the symmetrical layout. The keyboard and trackpad are centred in the chassis, and the Samsung logo sits dead centre on the lid. It sounds like a minor adjustment, but in practice, it gives the whole machine a tidier, more composed appearance than its predecessors.

The chassis is aluminium throughout. Samsung's finish is understated, a satin dark grey that resists fingerprints reasonably well and gives nothing away about the modest price. The build feels solid, if anything its overly well-constructed. There is a little flex in the keyboard deck under pressure, but the lid is firm, and the hinge is nicely weighted.

At 1.8 kg, the 16-inch Book6 EE is not a machine you forget is in your bag. The Pro model, by comparison, weighs just 1.56 kg. For a single day of commuting, the difference is not dramatic. Over a week of travel, it becomes relevant. If portability is the primary concern, the Pro or something under 1.4 kg would serve better.

The keyboard has been redesigned with a symmetrical key layout and slightly larger keycaps. The backlight is present across all models, and, as a special feature of the EE design, there is a numeric keypad. The trackpad is generously sized for a Windows machine, though it is a standard mechanical unit. The haptic trackpad is reserved for the Ultra.

Port selection on the 16-inch model covers the basics: two USB-C ports (one supports USB PD charging), a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, a full-size HDMI output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a physical RJ-45 LAN port. That last port is a welcome inclusion. Most thin laptops omit it entirely. The 14-inch model loses the LAN port, I believe.

The biggest issues here are the weight, which is over 300g heavier than the equivalent Acer Swift 16 AI, and some of the port choices.

If you are encouraging upper-body development among your staff and discouraging them from plugging anything in, this might be a good fit for your business.

I should also mention that there are no visible screws on this machine, so getting inside is problematic if you were thinking about upgrading the internal storage. As the memory is soldered, that’s a non-starter for adding more, even if you can get the case apart.

If you do pull the feet off and find the hidden screws, then you can get inside and discover an unused M.2 2280 slot ready to populate. Normally, this would be a reason for some celebration, but being realistic, the hidden screws would put off most owners before they discovered the upgrade path.

The move from 16:9 to 16:10 in the Book6 display is a welcome one. The extra vertical space makes a practical difference when writing documents or scrolling through code, and it brings the machine in line with competitors that adopted the format a year or two earlier.

The resolution is WUXGA, 1920 x 1200 on the 16-inch panel. That is not a headline number in a market where the Pro ships with a 3K AMOLED screen, but at 16 inches, it is a perfectly acceptable pixel density for everyday use.

IPS has well-known characteristics. Colour accuracy and brightness are adequate for productivity work. Contrast is reasonable, but you will not see the deep blacks or vivid saturation of an OLED. Glossy coating is available on the touchscreen models; the standard display is matte, which suits office use.

• Design: 4 / 5

Samsung Galaxy Book6 EE: Hardware

• Intel Core Ultra 7 355 (Panther Lake, Intel 18A)
• Intel integrated Xe3 graphics (4 Xe cores)
• 49 TOPS NPU for local AI tasks
• USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports

Before I talk about the platform, I’d like to cover how the Enterprise Edition is different to the retail Book6.

For starters, the retail models don’t offer vPro specification processors, although equally, it is only an option on the 14-inch Enterprise Edition machines.

The Enterprise Edition was built for enterprise deployment with customised OS imaging, BIOS configuration and asset tagging capabilities. It also supports Windows Autopilot and BIOS-level logo customisation, allowing organisations to deploy standardised systems at scale. These are nice-to-haves but hardly critical Enterprise features.

What is more important is that this build adds a discrete Trusted Platform Module for enhanced encryption and credential protection, IR facial recognition alongside the fingerprint reader, and aligns with NIST platform security requirements while integrating Samsung Knox protections. Therefore, if you wish to manage a fleet of company laptops from invasive threats, then the Enterprise Editions are better suited.

These things might not be relevant to smaller enterprises, but to Enterprise customers who are aiming to manage large computer inventories with modest IT resources, they could be critical. Anyway, let’s cover what is under the hood.

Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 represents a meaningful change in the processor landscape. Built on the new 18A process node, Panther Lake is Intel's return to fab leadership after several years on TSMC. The architecture separates high-performance P-cores from efficiency E-cores more distinctly than before, and the NPU has grown substantially. The 49 TOPS figure here qualifies the Book6 as a Copilot+ PC, but that’s not the whole story.

The Core Ultra 7 355 in the top 16-inch Book6 configuration is a U-series part, designed for efficiency rather than all-out performance. It handles web browsing, document editing, light photo work and video calls without any meaningful strain. The integrated Xe3 graphics are improved over the previous generation. Samsung quotes 41% better graphical performance than the Book5, but it is still a step below the Arc B390 iGPU in the Pro, which brings 12 Xe3 cores and a larger shader array.

As a reviewer, I find Intel's return to the ‘Intel Graphics’ naming convention patently idiotic and designed to intentionally confuse the customer. The silicon here is based on the Battlemage work Intel did for its discrete video card range, the one it seems so intent on killing.

The review unit arrives with 32GB of LPDDR5X, which is the right amount for a machine positioned to handle AI workloads alongside a regular productivity stack. The base SKUs start at 16GB, which is workable but leaves less headroom as Galaxy AI features grow more demanding. Either way, the RAM is soldered throughout the range. The configuration you order is the one you keep.

The problem with not having more than 32GB of RAM is that it effectively caps how many local LLMs you can realistically run, even if the combined TOPS of the CPU, GPU, and NPU is decent.

This is where the platform truly shines for day-to-day local assistant use, running models like Llama 3.1 (8B) or Gemma 2 (9B) using standard 4-bit or 5-bit quantisation (e.g., Q4_K_M or Q5_K_M). Smaller models like Llama 3.2 (1B/3B), Microsoft Phi 3.5, or Qwen 2.5 (3B) run exceptionally well, and it is possible to load and run slightly heavier models such as Mistral Nemo (12B) or Qwen 2.5 (14B).

The sweet spot for AI is undoubtedly the 7B to 9B parameter models, where this hardware can easily generate 12 to 20 tokens per second. Modes at Q4 quantisation in this range typically require around 5 GB to 6 GB of memory. This leaves plenty of extra memory within your 32 GB pool to significantly increase the context window, maybe up to 32K, without risking out-of-memory crashes.

However, the hardware on this machine isn’t all good news.

For an inexplicable reason, Samsung decided that customers who may have spent between £1500 and £2000 on a laptop didn’t deserve USB4 or Thunderbolt 4. To put that in perspective, a mini PC, like the GMKtec NucBox M6 Ultra, comes with USB4 for £239.99.

What’s super annoying about this omission is that the Intel processors in this platform all come with USB4 inherently; Samsung just couldn’t be bothered to wire it up.

Some IT person reading this is probably thinking, “That’s no big deal, we disabled all the USBs anyway”. Well, on the basis that you need those ports to recharge, good luck with that plan.

In all honesty, I couldn’t recommend a machine costing this much that didn’t come with a USB-C type port that was only USB 3.2 Gen 2.

• Hardware: 3.5 / 5

Samsung Galaxy Book6 EE: Performance

For my comparison, I've used the Acer TravelMate P6 14 AI, since it shows what's changed from the 200 series to the new 300 series platforms.

I know that the 300 series architecture is an improvement over the 200 series, so why do these numbers not show that is the first obvious question.

From a processing perspective, the Intel Core Ultra 7 355 doesn’t deliver the same punch as the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V on single-threaded tasks, but it is better on multi-threading in some tasks.

But where it falls down considerably is in graphics performance, as the Intel Graphics 4 platform can’t hold a candle to the Arc 140V GPU on previous-generation chips.

It’s worth saying that some of the 300 series have the Arc B390 iGPU, but not this one, sadly. The focus, as it has been since the 100 series, is all on efficiency, and the 300 is certainly power efficient.

The headline battery claim from Samsung is 24 hours of video playback on the 16-inch model. That is a marketing number tested under controlled conditions, and real-world use will land somewhere south of that.

In my tests, it ran the PCMark battery test for an impressive 18 hours and 4 minutes, which is slightly under what the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI managed, but with a smaller battery. That’s enough for the longest working day that most people will likely encounter, and some.

For those wanting to truly burn the midnight oil, the Pro model has either a 78.07 or 67.18 Wh battery, and the Ultra packs a huge 80.20 Wh of capacity.

What helps battery life is that the 120Hz panel drops to 30Hz adaptively when content is static, which Samsung says cuts display power consumption by around 15% on the 16-inch model. That is a meaningful contribution to overall battery life in day-to-day use.

Super Fast Charging 2.0 brings the battery from flat to 33% in 30 minutes. That is useful for a quick top-up between meetings. A full charge will take considerably longer, especially since this model only comes with a 45W PSU. The system is calibrated to that power supply, as using a 100W USB-C charger didn’t speed up the charging process for me.

Overall, while performance in some respects is strong, the way Intel added better multitasking while reducing GPU performance might be an issue for graphics users.

• Performance: 4 / 5

Samsung Galaxy Book6 EE: Final verdict

The Galaxy Book6 is a confident and well-executed entry into the Panther Lake era for Samsung's mainstream laptop line. The build quality is good, if heavy, and the battery endurance is among the strongest you will find at this size. And the Galaxy AI integration is more practical than most of the AI laptop marketing that has dominated the past two years.

However, there are some significant flaws in this concept that appear specifically designed to encourage up-selling to the Book6 Pro series. Chief amongst these is the omission of the OLED display from this tier, making the IPS display merely adequate rather than impressive. The soldered RAM demands careful configuration from the start, and a machine costing more than £2000 that offers only USB 3.2 Gen2 is laughable in this era.

What I've since been told by Samsung is that the vPro models have USB4, which seems an excessive price premium merely to get a feature that all processors on this platform inherently have.

When I first got this machine, I was impressed by how many ports it had, despite the trend toward minimalist layouts. Except it needs those ports, because adding a docking station to this hardware when you only have USB 3.2 Gen 2 to connect is a pointless exercise.

For anyone coming to the Galaxy Book range for the first time, or Windows users who want something reliable, well-built and future-ready at an accessible entry point, the Book6 EE makes a reasonable case. However, if you don’t use AI locally, the Book5 and Book4 models make an even better one from a value and feature perspective.

Those with more demanding needs, the jump to Pro is worth the premium, leaving the base Book6 EE somewhat adrift.

Should you buy a Samsung Galaxy Book6 EEI?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

For more top-performers for professionals, we've tested the best business computers.

GameSir X5 Lite: one-minute review

The GameSir X5 Lite is a basic mobile controller designed to work with Android and iOS devices ranging from 105mm / 4.13 inches to 213mm / 8.39 inches long.

It has a functional and minimalist form with little fanfare. It looks more striking in its green ‘Wasabi’ guise, but this is about the only flourish the controller displays. There’s no lighting, save for a small LED ring around the GameSir button.

The build quality of the X5 Lite is quite good. The materials don’t feel as premium as those of the best mobile controllers, but they’re sufficient nonetheless. Thankfully, GameSir doesn’t seem to have skimped on the engineering of the central retractable bar; its spring mechanism is as smooth and strong as I could’ve wished for, while still being fairly easy to pull apart.

The X5 Lite provides a secure fit for your phone, thanks to the selection of silicone pads provided. The USB-C jack also provides a strong connection, and it flexes to make it easier to insert. The X5 Lite also features a USB-C port for passthrough phone charging, which is a nice touch and is positioned to allow for its use while gaming.

Speaking of which, the gaming performance of the X5 Lite is very good. The grips are ergonomic and comfortable, although they might be too small for those with larger hands. Thanks to their generous dampening, the buttons are satisfying and easy to press. The same can be said about the bumpers and triggers, although these are a little more snappy, which is ideal. The D-pad is very easy and comfortable to use, too.

The real highlight of the X5 Lite, though, is its Hall Effect analog sticks. Despite their small size, they’re smooth and precise, and rebound quickly to their starting position. They’re also very comfortable, thanks to the ergonomic caps.

It's a shame that the GameSir app doesn’t offer much in the way of adjustments or customizations, and the hardware of the X5 Lite can’t be swapped out. However, given its relatively low price, the X5 Lite is a great value mobile controller all the same.

GameSir X5 Lite review: Price & availability

• $34.99 / £34.99 / AU$44.99
• Available now in black and light green
• Budget end of the market

The GameSir X5 Lite costs $34.99 / £34.99 / AU$44.99 and is available now. It comes in two colorways: black and a light green shade called Wasabi.

This is a great price for a mobile controller of this caliber. It may lack the sophistication and customization options of more premium models, but it does the basics very well.

For a more upmarket experience, you could try the Razer Kishi V3 Pro. This has bigger grips, so more players should be able to get their hands around it. Its app also allows for far more adjustments than GameSir’s. The V3 Pro is considerably more expensive than the X5 Lite, although its antecedent, the Rishi Ultra, is now considerably cheaper, yet offers comparable performance.

If it’s hardware customization you want, but still don’t want to spend the earth, there’s the GameSir G8+ MFi. This model features swappable stick caps and face buttons, as well two extra buttons on the back of each grip.

GameSir X5 Lite review: Specs

GameSir X5 Lite review: Design and features

• Functional appearance
• Secure fit for phones
• Basic app

The X5 Lite puts function first, with its chunky, ergonomic grips standing out above all else. There’s no RGB lighting here, just a small LED ring around the GameSir button at the bottom of the right grip.

The black colorway is a little bland, but the light green version, which GameSir calls Wasabi, is certainly more conspicuous. There are also yellow accents on the bases of the analog sticks and on the inside of the central bar.

It feels quite well made, although the plastics don’t look or feel particularly upmarket. They should hold up well enough, however, and they’re a fair compromise given how light the X5 Lite is; this truly a mobile gamepad.

More impressive, though, is its sliding mechanism for the phone slot. There’s a lot of resistance, which is a positive since it provides a strong clasp for your device. A good tug or drop will likely dislodge it, but under normal usage your phone shouldn’t go anywhere. Despite this, it isn’t too difficult to prise open, since it slides very smoothly.

The secure fit is also aided by the silicone pad inserts on the inside of the grips. There are three to choose from, each with different thicknesses in order to accommodate various phone sizes and phone cases. I had no trouble finding ones that allowed my test phone — the Xiaomi 17T with a case attached — to fit inside the X5 Lite. They’re easy to replace, too.

Unlike some mobile controllers, the X5 Lite doesn’t have wireless connectivity. Instead, there’s a USB-C jack tucked inside the left grip. Thankfully, it’s flexible enough to connect to your phone easily. However, this does mean you have no choice but to orient your phone with the power and volume buttons at the bottom, which some users might find inconvenient.

There’s also a USB-C port on the bottom of the left grip to allow for passthrough charging of your phone. This is a good location as it doesn’t get in the way; my palm just managed to curve around my charging cable as I held the controller.

You can download the GameSir mobile app to adjust various settings on the X5 Lite, but the options here are limited. You can alter the deadzone of both sticks, and switch the face buttons from an Xbox to a Switch layout, but that’s it.

This pales in comparison to the number of tweaks available in other controller software. Also, there’s supposed to be a setting to let you control your phone’s UI with the X5 Lite, but I couldn’t see this option anywhere.

GameSir X5 Lite review: Performance

• Comfortable but small grips
• Satisfying button presses
• Precise and fast analog sticks

In action, the X5 Lite is excellent. The grips are a little stunted compared to more traditional gamepads, which meant I could only get my first two fingers fully around them. This wasn’t uncomfortable for me, but those with bigger hands might struggle to hold the pad securely.

The face buttons are very satisfying to press, owing to their dampening. They’re also very snappy and responsive, and are easy to hit thanks to their positioning and spacing.

This is also true of the shoulder buttons. I had no issue reaching either the bumpers or the triggers with my fingers, and their ergonomic shape makes them comfortable to rest on. The bumpers have a satisfying click to them, and although they’re slightly less damped than the face buttons, they’re certainly not harsh. Additionally, they provide enough feedback to inspire confidence that they’ve registered, too.

If anything, the triggers feel even better. Striking the ideal balance between clicky and damped, they again offer satisfying feedback and have a generous amount of travel. It’s a shame they aren’t analog, although it has to be said not many mobile games make use of such triggers.

Perhaps the highlight of the X5 Lite is its Hall Effect analog sticks. They’re much smoother than I was expecting, moving effortlessly and snapping back to the center with plenty of spring. They’re also impressively solid, with next to no play to them.

What’s more, they offer plenty of control, despite their small size. I had no problem performing complex and nuanced movements in games such as Hitman Blood Money — Reprisal or Lara Croft: Guardian of Light. In fact, they even rival those of the best PC controllers.

They’re also comfortable to use, thanks to their caps being soft to the touch and slightly indented. Like the best Xbox controllers, they’re laid out asymmetrically, which I and many others find more ergonomic.

The D-pad in the X5 Lite is very easy to use. It’s light and forgiving, with plenty of dampening and travel in all directions, which makes it more comfortable than many others I’ve experienced. Pressing multiple directions in quick succession, therefore, is a cinch, even though it’s topped with a traditional four-pronged hat, rather than a more modern circular one.

I didn’t experience any connectivity issues during my time with the X5 Lite. The USB jack maintained a secure connection and I didn’t have any concerns about it coming loose at any point.

Should I buy the GameSir X5 Lite?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

GameSir X5 Lite review: Also consider

How I tested the GameSir X5 Lite

• Tested for several days
• Played different games
• Plentiful gaming experience

I tested the GameSir X5 Lite for several days. I used it with two different Android phones: the Google Pixel 7a and the Xiaomi 17T. I used the different silicone pads that came in the box.

I played Hitman: Blood Money — Reprisal, Lara Croft: Guardian of Light, and Asphalt Legends. I downloaded GameSir’s mobile app to try out its various features and customizations.

I’ve been gaming for decades, and have used all kinds of systems in that time, from home consoles and PCs to laptops and other handheld systems. I also have plenty of experience with controllers, and have reviewed a number of them before, including another mobile model from GameSir, the GameSir X4 Aileron.

• Read more about how we test
• First reviewed June 2026

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier: two-minute review

The Blueair Mini Restful Sunrise Clock Air Purifier is a three-in-one device — technically a four-in-one if you include the built-in USB charger — that combines an air purifier, a sunrise alarm clock and a wake-up light in a single unit. It launched as part of Blueair's Sleep collection with a clear USP: rather than cluttering your nightstand with separate devices, one appliance handles the air quality, the light and the alarm. If you've been browsing the best compact air purifiers for a bedroom, the Mini Restful sits in a category of its own.

The purification uses Blueair's HEPASilent technology, which captures 99.97% of particles down to 0.1 microns — finer than a standard HEPA filter — and my hayfever symptoms were noticeably more manageable on mornings after I'd had the Mini Restful running.

It runs across three fan speeds plus a Night mode, covers rooms up to 33m² / 355 sq ft, and is QuietMark certified. The brand claims noise levels of 21dB on its lowest setting whereas my own tests averaged 32dB, much of which was ambient.

In reality, it's whisper quiet and I could easily run it through the night without disturbing my sleep. I even forgot to switch it off a lot of the time because it's so quiet, I didn't realize it was still running.

What makes it stand out most from other purifiers I've tested is the wake-up light: a circular ring below the touchscreen display that brightens gradually over 15–30 minutes before your alarm time. This is designed to mimic natural sunrise, and you can also choose from multiple alarm sounds via the app, including birdsong, soft tones, and rainfall.

This wake-up light is impressively bright for its size and the whole appliance's design is attractive enough for you to actually want on your bedside table. I tested the Blueair Mini Restful in summer so while it helped rouse me gently, it's hard to judge exactly how effective it would be in the depths of winter, say, when a more gentle wake-up is most needed.

At 11.8in / 30cm tall and just 2.36lbs / 1.07kg, it sits comfortably on a standard nightstand, and the USB-C port at the back means it can charge your phone too, saving you even more space by eliminating the need for a separate charger.

My biggest complaint about the Mini Restful is the Blueair app, which doesn't quite live up to the rest of the device's performance. When it works, it's great — intuitive and clean. Yet there's no way to track air quality levels, and during my review period there was often a lag between adjusting settings and the device responding. This became frustrating quickly. The connectivity dropped completely three times during the four weeks of tests and I had to fully reconnect to my Wi-Fi and phone.

For anyone who suffers from allergies and has been meaning to try a sunrise alarm, the Mini Restful makes a compelling case that one device can do all of it well. But even if you already own one of the best air purifiers on the market and a separate sunrise alarm, the Mini Restful makes a strong argument for consolidating. It will definitely feel like an upgrade.

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: price and availability

• List price: $199.99 / £169
• Available in the US and UK

The Blueair Mini Restful is available directly from Blueair US and Blueair UK, as well as from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Walmart and John Lewis. It has a list price of $199.99 / £169, which converts to about AU$280, but at the time of writing it's not available in Australia.

On purification alone, it's easy to find cheaper options. Blueair's own £79 Blue Pure Mini Max, the £59.99 GoveeLife Smart Air Purifier Lite and the £149.99 Levoit Core 300S are all strong compact options that cost less and if all you want is cleaner air in a bedroom, any of those will do the job well. However, none of them has a sunrise alarm or wake-up light. Nor do they charge your phone.

In fact, there is no direct equivalent on the market — no other purifier currently combines HEPASilent filtration with a built-in sunrise alarm and wake-up light in a single bedside device. This means the real question isn't how it compares to other purifiers, but whether it's cheaper and better than buying two separate devices.

On that measure, it mostly wins. The Hatch Restore 3 ($169.99 / £220) is widely considered the best standalone sunrise alarm clock you can buy, while a compact bedroom purifier like the Levoit Core 300S adds another $99 / £90 on top. That's $260 / £240 for two devices that take up more space, require two separate apps and two separate power outlets. The Mini Restful does both jobs for $199.99 / £169 in a single unit that sits comfortably on a bedside table.

The trade-off is that neither function quite matches what a dedicated device delivers. The sunrise graduation isn't as smooth as the Hatch Restore 3, and the purification coverage is limited to spaces up to 33m² / 355 sq ft. If you need serious room coverage or a flawless sunrise simulation, you'd be better served buying separately. But for a standard bedroom and anyone who wants to simplify their nightstand, the value case is very strong.

Replacement filters cost $29.99 / £24 and need changing every nine months — a running cost worth budgeting for, even though it's in line with most other comparable purifiers.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier specs

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: design

• Compact and attractive enough to earn its place on a nightstand
• Soft woven fabric exterior
• Touchscreen display doubles as clock face
• Controls can feel awkward at table height

The Mini Restful is one of the better-looking air purifiers I've had in my bedroom, which matters more than it might sound.

Most purifiers are designed for corners and shelves where nobody has to look at them. They're functional, but they largely earn their keep by blending in. The Mini Restful is instead designed to stand out, and Blueair has clearly put effort into the aesthetic. The woven fabric exterior, which is available in Coastal Beige or Midnight and can be removed and cleaned, feels closer to an Alexa speaker than a home appliance. For comparison, the Levoit Core 300S — a purifier I rate highly for performance — is a plain white cylinder that would look out of place on my nightstand.

At 11.8 inches / 30cm tall and 6.7 inches / 17cm across, it has a similar footprint to a bedside lamp, albeit slightly more imposing. It's taller than I had expected for something described as a bedside device and it's not as compact as I'd like (the Blueair Blue Pure Mini Max, for instance, is shorter and lighter) but it does fit comfortably. I could fit the purifier and my phone charger on my nightstand without it feeling cluttered.

At 2.36lbs / 1.07kg, it's also light enough to pick up and move without any effort. The cord runs neatly through the base and plugs into a standard outlet, and at the back there's a USB-C port for charging your phone overnight. This is easy to reach without having to move the unit, and it's one of those small additions that makes a real difference to how the product fits into a bedside routine.

All of the controls sit on the top of the device, arranged around a circular touchscreen display. The display shows the time, current fan speed and filter status at a glance, and is the main interface for adjusting settings manually. It's responsive and readable in low light and the icons are intuitive — power, fan speed, display lock and purification mode are all clearly differentiated. I found I could adjust settings without turning the main light on after the first few days of use. The display can also be locked via the app if you want to prevent accidental changes overnight.

Just below the display is the light ring — a circular band that serves as both the wake-up light and a soft night light. It's a smaller lit area than you'd find on a dedicated sunrise alarm like the Hatch Restore 3, which uses its entire face as a light source, and I was skeptical that such a narrow ring could produce enough light to actually wake me. It did, and it looked elegant doing so.

Setup is straightforward. The Mini Restful arrives in a simple box with the device, a cord and a plug — thread the cord through the base, attach the plug, remove the plastic cover from the filter inside and you're done, in under two minutes.

From there you download the free Blueair app, create an account, and connect the device to your home Wi-Fi. The whole process took me around five minutes, and the app walks you through each step clearly. It's here that you'll set your alarm times, choose your wake sounds, adjust the sunrise duration, and create purification schedules.

The one ergonomic issue I found is that having everything on top means you need to lean over to adjust anything manually when the unit is at table height. It's a minor inconvenience rather than a dealbreaker, and in practice I used the app for most adjustments after the first week, but it's not ideal. Overall, this is a product that has been designed with the bedroom specifically in mind, and it shows in almost every decision Blueair has made.

• Design score: 4.5 out of 5

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: performance

• Powerful purification even on lowest settings
• Near-silent on Night mode and speed 1
• Wake-up light impressively bright for its size
• Sunrise graduation can be abrupt

The Mini Restful has two jobs to do — clean the air and wake you up gently — and it approaches both with more conviction than I expected from a device of this size.

I tested it over four weeks as my primary bedroom purifier and alarm clock, running it every night and monitoring air quality via the Blueair app each morning. I also measured noise levels at each fan speed using a decibel meter, and ran the sunrise alarm as my sole alarm throughout the review period rather than keeping a backup.

Starting with the purification. The HEPASilent filtration captures 99.97% of airborne particles down to 0.1 microns, which is finer than a standard HEPA filter, and covers dust, pollen, pet dander and most common allergens with ease. I suffer from hayfever and the review period coincided with peak pollen season, which gave me a useful real-world test. On mornings after running the Mini Restful through the night on speed 1 or 2, I noticed a genuine difference: less of the throat tightness and eye irritation I'd normally get.

To test the purification speed specifically, I sprayed deodorant directly at the unit for five seconds on both the lowest and highest settings, then timed how long it took for the air quality reading in the app to return to normal. On the lowest setting it took around 45 minutes to fully clear. On the highest setting it took just 12 minutes — a significant difference. The app's air quality history chart, which shows readings over the past 24 hours and 30 days, is useful for tracking these changes and gave me a clear picture of how conditions shifted.

On noise, the Mini Restful is super quiet. Blueair claims 21dB on the lowest speed; my measurements put it at around 32dB. This sounds like a huge difference but the purifier is almost inaudible, even in a quiet room. Speed 2 registers around 35dB, which produces a gentle white noise that actually helped me sleep rather than disturbing me. Speed 3 is noticeably louder at around 48dB — not unpleasant, but enough that I wouldn't choose to run it while trying to fall asleep. The Night mode handles the transition well though, stepping the fan down to its quietest setting automatically, and I left it on this mode for the majority of the review period.

Blueair says the Mini Restful works best in rooms between 14–33m² / 151–355 sq ft, which will cover most standard bedrooms. I tested it in a medium-sized room and found it kept up well, with the air quality sensor registering improvements within 20–30 minutes of switching on after a day with the windows open. It won't cope with large open-plan spaces — for that you'd need something with considerably more power, like the Dyson HushJet Compact — but for a bedroom it's more than adequate.

The wake-up light is the more interesting part of the performance story. The light ring is small relative to a dedicated sunrise alarm but on its highest brightness setting it lit the room enough to wake me without the alarm sound triggering at all on several mornings. The three manual brightness levels via the touchscreen are useful, and the app's slider control allows finer adjustment if you want to dial it in precisely.

The issue is with the graduation. The light is supposed to brighten gradually over 15–30 minutes before your alarm time, mimicking a natural sunrise. For the most part it does, and on the mornings it worked as intended the experience was gentler than waking to a conventional alarm. But on several occasions — I counted at least six across the four-week review period — the light jumped to full brightness abruptly rather than easing up to it, which is jarring. It doesn't ruin the experience entirely but it stops the Mini Restful from matching the consistently smooth graduation of a dedicated wake-up light. If the sunrise simulation is the primary reason you're considering this, that inconsistency is worth noting.

Elsewhere, the alarm sounds themselves are pleasant and varied — birdsong, soft tones, rainfall — and the volume is adjustable via the app.

• Performance score: 4.5 out of 5

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier review: app

• Required for full setup and alarm customization
• Doesn't show air quality levels
• Clean, well-organized interface
• Lag between app and device is frustrating
• No HomeKit, Alexa or Google Home support

Despite a small number of flaws, I can barely fault the hardware of the Blueair Mini Restful. The same can't be said for the app though, sadly.

Firstly, the Blueair app isn't optional. You can use the touchscreen to turn the device on and off and cycle through fan speeds, but doing anything of note, such as setting alarms, choosing wake sounds, adjusting the sunrise duration, creating purification schedules and checking air quality history, all require the app.

This is great when it works. The interface is clean and logically laid out, with the device status and filter life all visible without having to dig through menus. Setting a sunrise alarm takes seconds: you pick a time, choose a sound, set the brightness duration between and you're done.

The filter replacement reminder is useful; the display lock feature is a sensible addition for overnight use; and the scheduling tools are flexible enough to set different purification levels for different times of day.

However, knowing how to view live air quality readings isn't obvious, and I ended up having to Google for help. Even then, you can only see the current outdoor air reading (via the Outdoor air section on the homepage) and not a live, room-by-room chart.

Then there's the problem with lag. There was a consistent, frustrating delay between adjusting a setting in the app and the device responding throughout almost the entire review period. This could be anything from a few seconds to almost 30 seconds on occasion. Switching fan speeds via the app often took longer than just tapping the top of the unit, which defeats part of the point of having remote control in the first place.

What's more, during my four-week review period the connection dropped completely three times, requiring a full reconnection through the app each time. I'd find myself checking the app before bed to make sure the alarm was still set and the connection was still live, which is exactly the kind of friction a product like this should be eliminating.

The absence of any smart home integration is also a real gap. There's no HomeKit support, Alexa skill or Google Home compatibility, which means the Mini Restful exists entirely within its own ecosystem. For anyone who controls their bedroom environment through a smart home setup — lights, heating, other devices — the Mini Restful sits outside all of that. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's a limitation that feels out of step with both the price and what other, similar connected bedroom devices offer.

Blueair has clearly invested in the app's design and the range of features it offers, and the bones are good but the execution needs a lot of work.

• App score: 3 out of 5

Should you buy the Blueair Mini Restful air purifier?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Blueair Mini Restful air purifier: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Blueair Mini Restful is the right air purifier for you, here are two other options to consider:

How I tested the Blueair Mini Restful air purifier

• Tested over four weeks as purifier and alarm clock
• Used the sunrise alarm as my sole morning alarm
• Measured noise levels at each fan speed with a decibel meter
• Tested purification speed by spraying deodorant at the unit and timing air clearance
• Monitored air quality data via the Blueair app

I used the Blueair Mini Restful as my main bedroom purifier and alarm clock for four weeks, running it every night and monitoring the air quality readings in the app each morning.

To test purification speed, I sprayed deodorant directly at the unit for five seconds on both the lowest and highest fan settings, then timed how long it took for the air quality reading in the app to return to normal.

I measured noise levels at each fan speed using a mobile phone decibel meter and ran the sunrise alarm as my sole morning alarm throughout the review. I also tested the app's scheduling tools, the USB-C charging port and the manual touchscreen controls.

Read more about how we test.

First reviewed May 2026

Denon Home 400: two-minute review

The Denon Home 400 sits in the Japanese brand's completely repositioned Home 2.0 range for 2026, and it doesn’t take much to see the updates as a direct challenge to Sonos and the best wireless speakers on the market. The range features three speakers — the Denon Home 200, 400 and 600 — all of which promise spatial audio from a single box. They’re all tuned by sound masters, built for native stereo playback even as singular units, deliver an immersive experience, and have refined designs.

The Denon Home 400 sits right in the middle of the range, but occupies a bit of a sweet spot. Its $599 price tag puts it at the same ball park as the Sonos Era 300, and I think Denon comes out of the comparison looking like the better option.

Along with Sonos, though, there’s no shortage of competition from the likes of Apple’s HomePods, JBL’s Authentics 300 and the WiiM Sound smart speakers. While the Denon range technically supports Siri, this is a product that’s much more about the sound than it is the smarts.

In use, it sounds tremendous and is highly customizable with a full spatial audio experience where you really can hear the difference. The HEOS app works brilliantly, and set-up is a doddle. It also has a sense of style. This is a speaker that looks premium rather than plasticky, and that alone may make it easier to recommend than Sonos for many potential buyers.

Is it worth the premium price, though? I’ve been hands-on to find out what the Denon does differently.

Denon Home 400 review: price and availability

• Released on March 24th, 2026
• $599 / £449 / AU$999 (approx.)

The Denon Home 400 costs $599 / £449 / AU$999 (approx.) and is clearly positioned to rival the Sonos Era 300, which costs $479 / £449 / AU$749 officially, but it is a bit more likely to be available on offer, having gone down to $379 / £339 on Amazon within the past six months.

Other similarly sized rivals include the JBL Authentics 300, which costs $450 / £380 / AU$600, or the bass-heavy Brane X for $599 / £475 / AU$915. Apple fans will also, of course, consider whether a HomePod 2 ($299 / £299 / AU$479) may better suit their needs, as it has a few clever tricks and perks for the iOS faithful.

Denon Home 400 review: specs

Denon Home 400 review: features

• Native Dolby Atmos with adjustable height and bass
• Several connectivity options
• Voice control only via Siri, and only if you already have a HomePod

The core selling point of all the new speakers in the Denon range is Dolby Atmos support with adjustable sound modes. I’ll go into that in more depth in the 'Sound quality' section below, but it is a meaningful differentiator between this speaker and most of its competition. The vast majority of other smart speakers will either not have Atmos or rely on (the admittedly clever) digital processing trick of spatial virtualization. That’s what the Denon Home 200 does, too.

The one option offering proper Atmos is the aforementioned Sonos Era 300. The Denon Home 400, just like this rival, packs in true Dolby Atmos with a six-driver setup: dedicated left and right drivers, upfiring drive units and two 4.5-inch woofers (all powered by six independent Class-D amplifiers). What this means is that you’ll get much more width — throw a Dolby Atmos track at this speaker and you’ll hear a wider soundstage — and real height, as it bounces sound off your ceiling. The adjustability in the Auto mode means you can dial in exactly how much bass extension, width or height you want.

You can use voice assistance on this speaker, but I’m not going to pretend it’s a headline feature. Apple’s Siri is the only voice assistant on offer, so you’re not going to find Google Assistant or Alexa as an option during setup. And, in order to set it up, you need to have an Apple HomePod or HomePod mini on your Wi-Fi network to handle the Siri requests you make on the Denon speaker.

Luckily, I’ve got some HomePods in another room, so I could test this, and it works fairly well, but I wouldn’t go around suggesting that this is a speaker with built-in voice control. It’s more of a niche added extra, as long as you already have an extra accessory that would cost you at least £99.

In general, the HEOS app (HEOS stands for Home Entertainment Operating System, thanks for asking) is excellent and great if you think you might set up a multi-room ecosystem of speakers after investing in this one. It covers multiple brands, not just Denon, and works with a wide range of speakers, soundbars and receivers.

Overall, the Denon Home 400 offers a broad range of connectivity options, including a 3.5mm AUX for use with turntables or MP3 players, and a simple native Bluetooth button to connect to other devices if you’re not using the app. Bluetooth LE Audio is coming via an update, and it has support for ALAC and aptX formats over Bluetooth. You’ve also got Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, and Qobuz Connect built in, too.

Through the USB-C port, you can deliver firmware updates via a pen drive or use wired Ethernet via any USB-C adapter, which is a nice benefit compared with others that might make you buy a proprietary dongle. Obviously, it’s not quite the same as built-in Ethernet, but it’s not a feature everyone would use.

There’s no remote with the speaker, it’s designed for use with the feature-filled HEOS app, where you can gather together your music services — including Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Tidal, Qobuz and TuneIn — and internet radio stations, along with control of the multi-room setup and audio customizations. I wish my choice of streaming service, Apple Music, were added to the picks, but it’s otherwise an app I find hard to fault.

• Features score: 4.5 / 5

Denon Home 400 review: sound quality

• Outstanding spatial audio performance from a single unit
• Excellent customization for height and width
• Pure mode for a more direct and balanced experience

We’re going to be talking a lot about spatial audio in this section, because that really is the Denon Home 400’s party piece. It can take a well-encoded Atmos mix and make it feel three-dimensional. It’s in the Auto setting by default, and that’s probably where I’d leave it in my environment, in which it’s more than capable of an immersive room-filling sound.

If spatial isn’t for you, you’ll prefer the Pure sound mode. This bypasses the DSP and works as a great mode for anyone wanting the typical stereo image experience.

I’d already had a chance to hear the Denon Home 400 in a London hotel suite, and that gave me a sense of just how impressive it would be. During Ed Sheeran’s Shivers, I could hear a noticeable height extension that makes it perceptibly different when compared with the Home 200. Listening to the Atmos mix of Riders on the Storm by The Doors reveals background vocals in the height layer, an element that’s harder to pick out in the neutral mode.

Having the speaker within my own apartment only further confirmed how adept it is with spatial sound. To test it, I mostly focused on playing Dolby Atmos from Apple Music over AirPlay, but I also used it with Spotify Connect, radio stations, and I set up both Spotify and Deezer within the HEOS app to test those, too. The experience is convincing, there’s a lot of clarity to be heard across the whole frequency range, and two woofers deliver significant bass oomph.

Listening to Raye’s Where Is My Husband! in Dolby Atmos is highly rewarding for how much extra detail you start to hear in the layers of instrumentation, all while keeping her powerful vocals right in the center. I used the HEOS app to dial up the width and height, and you can feel the backing vocals spread out on the soundstage, with the instruments becoming easier to identify in space.

Putting the 400 in Pure mode and switching over to Click Clack Symphony shows that there’s a place for both modes. Pure is much more direct and balanced. There’s clearly more vocal presence in this mode, and the stomps have far more impact. You can get a different sonic experience by switching between both modes, something this track shows so well — it’s bordering on ethereal in Auto with those spatial customisations, yet sounds intimate on the Pure setting.

In general, I find the sound hard to fault. By default, the Auto mode may have a smidge too much bass for my tastes, but it’s easily remedied by moving the slider down two notches in the app. The Pure mode is fairly neutral in its approach, but still has its fair share of energy and dynamism. If you listen to spatial tracks, play around with Auto, but most of us should find Pure less fatiguing, making it a better 'set and forget' option.

• Sound quality score: 4.5 / 5

Denon Home 400 review: design

• Durable and stylish look
• Two neutral colorways
• Will suit most living spaces

Immediately after unboxing, it’s clear that the Denon Home 400 is more than your average utilitarian speaker. The best thing about its design is the lack of visible plastic, which is only really visible on the speaker's top section. The rest is covered by a seamless piece of fabric with no obvious seams, and the bottom of the speaker — just like every model in the new Denon range — is a sturdy titanium base plate. It adds a little bulk, sure, but also the satisfaction of knowing that this is durable and not something that can be tipped over.

Underneath the speaker, a light glows to let you know it’s turned on. This was something that my wife initially felt ruined the look, but it’s easily solved because you can lower the brightness (or turn the light off entirely) in the app. Crisis averted. There are physical controls on the right side of the device, allowing you to control volume and playback, along with three quick select buttons (for your favourite internet radio stations or streaming services) and an action button to summon voice control.

The speaker also comes in the same two neutral colorways as the rest of the range – Charcoal and Stone (my review unit). I’ve got no complaints. It’s a speaker that’s designed to look good in the living room without commanding attention, and it does exactly that. It’s also worth noting that, on the back, there’s a switch to mute the microphone and that it’s a hard-wired off button that’s not connected to the network circuitry.

I find this looks much less plasticky in comparison to rival speakers (looking at you, Sonos) and that the Home 400's buttons and controls are easier to understand and use (looking at you, Apple). It ends up being a winner on multiple fronts.

• Design score: 5 / 5

Denon Home 400 review: Usability & setup

• Controls are easy to understand and use
• The HEOS app is intuitive and full of features
• But there’s not much voice control available here

The Denon Home 400 is an exceptionally straightforward speaker to set up and use. The box gives you the speaker unit itself and the power cable. Once it’s plugged in, you set it up with the HEOS app, a process that took me approximately five to 10 minutes, and connect it to your home Wi-Fi network, telling the app whether the speaker is away from walls, in a corner, or just in front of one wall, which helps it adapt its sound.

You do need to use the app so that you get all of the internet-connected features, but it doesn’t take long at all to get started. Once you pick some favourite radio stations in the app, you can also press and hold on the preset buttons to save them for quick access, and you can always just use the Bluetooth button to connect devices that might not be on your wireless network. The same applies to wired playback.

I tested both with my MP3 player, the Activo P1, and found it seamless in use. However, it’s worth mentioning that I couldn’t get the Denon to play back at one of its supported higher-res Bluetooth codecs over the P1; it stayed stuck in SBC despite supporting higher bandwidth options.

In day-to-day use, though, this is highly intuitive to use, both wirelessly and if you were to connect an AUX cable to an MP3 player, CD player or turntable. Denon has said a goal with this product is getting you to your music with minimal button presses, and that holds true in use, whether you’re using those quick select buttons, or just playing wirelessly over the HEOS app, Spotify Connect or AirPlay. The one downside would be for those who are used to voice control of their playlists. Unless you use Siri and already have a HomePod, this doesn’t work well for that.

If you were keen to set up multi-room groups, this would also work well, with controls within the HEOS app, plus the ability to create a stereo pair with two Denon Home 400s. It’s also a great feature that the ability to mute the microphone is a physical control, not something that exists only in software, something that’s great for peace of mind if you don’t want to use voice assistance or have your voice recorded.

• Usability & setup score: 4.5 / 5

Denon Home 400 review: value

• Premium price to match the Sonos Era 300
• Cheaper units don’t deliver spatial audio this good
• Rivals are a bit better for voice control, though

At $599, the Home 400 is priced at the top of the standalone premium home speaker market, making it a direct rival to the Sonos Era 300. For me, the Denon more than matches its Sonos competition when it comes to powerful spatial audio and is also a more stylish speaker with more intuitive control and better connectivity. The Denon gives you spatial customization missing from Sonos, and it also has built-in AUX, USB-C and the option of Ethernet.

While rivals like the Sonos Era 100 and Apple HomePod are cheaper, they’re also more locked into ecosystems. They’re good as affordable rivals, but the Denon offers the more powerful, more immersive and more customizable sound. And, while the JBL Authentics 300 also holds a lot of appeal, and I’m a particular fan of its style and retro controls, it lacks native Dolby Atmos, so it doesn’t feel like a direct rival.

The one thing you’ll want to keep in mind is the lack of capable voice assistance from the Denon at launch, but if that doesn’t matter to you, the customizable spatial sound, ability to connect to players and turntables, plus intuitive control make the Denon Home 400 a good value buy in this price tier. Just make sure you’re keen on spatial sound and know you want to hear the layers inside a mix, as that’s what sets this apart.

• Value score: 4.5 / 5

Should I buy the Denon Home 400?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Denon Home 400 review: also consider

How I tested the Denon Home 400

• Tested with music streamed from Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music via AirPlay, and radio stations within the HEOS app
• Also tested Bluetooth and wired performance with the Activo P1 audio player
• Used Audio Pro A10 MkII for comparison during listening tests
• Tested over several weeks of both casual and critical listening

I tested the Denon Home 400 using a wide range of different music genres and styles, including popular hits, soundtracks, ambient playlists and classical. I listened to podcasts and radio content, too, over several weeks of testing. I primarily used the Denon Home 400 in one spot, on a table in my living room, and that gave me a sense of how well it was able to fill the space in my small flat.

I used Bluetooth and wired connections with my Activo P1 music player, and also streamed using the HEOS app itself, accessing Deezer, Spotify and radio stations from this interface. Most of my spatial listening was tested via AirPlay, playing tracks mixed for Dolby Atmos through Apple Music.

For some direct comparisons, I used the other speakers that I currently have in my flat, including an Audio Pro A10 MkII and a couple of HomePod Minis in a stereo pair. And, to get a great understanding of the speaker’s performance, I made sure to listen to the widest possible range of genres at varying volume levels.

• First reviewed: June 2026
• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee

Dyson HushJet Mini Cool: review

Dyson’s engineers are experts in airflow — whether in vacuum cleaners, fans, or hair dryers — and the HushJet Mini Cool puts that power right in your hand. It’s a portable cooling fan that you can hold, wear around your neck, attach to clothing or a bag strap (if you buy one of the optional clip accessories) or stand upright on your desk — and it really works.

Shortly before testing the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool, I got my hands on the Shark ChillPill — a rival handheld fan that was released at approximately the same time. I was impressed by the ChillPill’s cooling ability, which is supplemented by a misting attachment and a metal cooling plate — but in terms of sheer power, the Dyson absolutely blows it away.

This mainly comes down to two factors: the fan’s powerful motor, which can reach up to 65,000rpm (compared to just 25,000rpm for the ChillPill), and the shape of the HushJet nozzle, which concentrates the airflow so it’s all directed right at you. Even on the lowest setting, you can really feel it; dial it up to maximum and it’s as powerful as some hairdryers I’ve used.

The sound is not unlike a miniature vacuum cleaner, but the HushJet shape works to eliminate the annoying higher frequencies that might irritate colleagues if you use it in the office, or fellow passengers on a busy commuter train. There’s even a hint of Dyson’s signature ‘bounce’ sound when you turn it off.

Accessories like a clamp (so you can attach it to gym equipment) are available to buy separately, but you get a neck strap included with the fan as standard. Slide this onto the fan (it has notches that allow it to slip past the control buttons), adjust the cord to a suitable length, rotate the fan’s head so it’s pointing towards you, and you’ll enjoy a cooling jet of air on your chest, neck and face, hands-free. Extremely handy if you’re taking stuffy public transport.

Dyson claims that the HushJet Mini Cool can run for up to six hours on its lowest power setting, but during my tests it significantly outperformed that figure, lasting almost exactly six and a half hours on a full charge.

It’s hard to fault the HushJet Mini, but a couple of things stood out during testing. Firstly, it’s easy to accidentally cover part of the air intake grille with your hand when holding the fan, which I’m sure affects its performance.

Secondly — and this is only my personal opinion — the Stone/Blush colorway makes the fan look like an exfoliating facial brush at first glance (not unlike the Braun Facespa Pro) which is a strange thing to wear around your neck and might raise a few eyebrows.

Dyson HushJet Mini Cool: specifications

Dyson HushJet Mini Cool: price and availability

• Launched May 2026
• Available globally
• List price $99 / £99.99 / AU$169

Dyson announced the HushJet Mini Cool on April 9, 2026, and it was available to buy globally a few weeks later. It has a list price of $99 / £99.99 / AU$169, which is very reasonable for a powerful personal fan. For comparison, the Shark ChillPill, which went on sale just a few weeks earlier for $149.99 in the US, or £129.99 in the UK (which converts to about AU$210, though at the time of writing the ChillPill isn’t yet available in Australia).

The Dyson HushJet Mini Cool has been in high demand since its launch, and at the time of writing (June 2026) it’s often sold out in Dyson’s official online stores. The Stone/Blush colorway is sometimes the only one available.

If you’re not planning to use your fan on the move, and want one specifically for your desk, take a look at the Dyson Cool CF1 Desk Fan, which is just as quiet but can move a larger volume of air, oscillates and has a remote control, making it a better choice if you’re sitting still (possibly working from home). It has a list price of £249.99 (about $340 / AU$470).

Dyson HushJet Mini Cool: Design

• Unique shape for a portable fan
• Nozzle focuses airflow and reduces noise
• Neck strap and charging base included

Dyson devices often look slightly unusual, taking the most practical shape for their function regardless of how vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, or, in this case, fans have traditionally looked. The HushJet Mini Cool is no exception — with its slim, tubular body and angled nozzle (which is the same shape as that of the Dyson HushJet Compact Purifier), it looks nothing like other personal cooling devices, but it’s a shape that works. The body of the fan is comfortable to hold, and the nozzle can be turned to direct the airflow exactly where it’s needed.

The HushJet Mini Cool is bladeless (like Dyson’s larger fans), ensuring the airflow is smooth rather than choppy, and its honeycomb-like mesh keeps dirt and debris out of the mechanism — though it's also supplied with a soft velvet carry case to protect it on the move.

The HushJet Mini Cool comes in three colorways: Ink/Cobalt (dark blue), Stone/Blush (soft pink, as shown here), and Carnelian/Sky (red and pale blue). Personally I prefer the latter option, which is the most striking, and it seems I’m not alone — at the time of writing all colors are selling out rapidly, but Carnelian/Sky seems to be the one disappearing from the virtual shelves quickest, followed by Ink/Cobalt.

The tubular shape, with a flat end, means that you can easily stand the HushJet Mini Cool on your desk while you work. If you’re planning to use it all day, it comes with a charging base, which provides extra stability regardless of whether the USB cable is plugged in or not.

Whichever color you choose, the fan’s case has a satin finish that feels pleasantly smooth and cool in the hand and is resistant to fingerprints, with contrasting colors for the nozzle and buttons. Dyson’s car never took off, but the company’s designers took the knowledge they gained about finishes and materials, and applied it to beauty products — which explains why they look so smart.

A row of five small white LEDs show the current power setting, and represent the battery level when the fan is charging..

Should you buy the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if

Don't buy it if

Dyson HushJet Mini Cool: also consider

If you're not sure whether the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool is the right fan to keep you cool, here are two other alternatives to consider.

How we tested the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool

• Tested for a week
• Used on trains, in the office, and at the gym
• Tested battery on lowest power mode
• Measured volume with decibel meter app

I spent a week testing the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool in various locations, including trains to work, at the office, and in the gym. I compared its performance directly against that of the Shark ChillPill.

I measured its noise level with a decibel meter app on my phone, and tested its battery life by fully charging it, then allowing it to run on the lowest power setting until it switched off. For more details, see how we test, review, and rate products at TechRadar.

First reviewed June 2026.